Mass Effect: Vindication
by Patient131071
Summary: Sequel to Activation. Corporal Thaddaeus Shepard is on Elysium to face a court martial in light of his questionable actions during the Torfan operation. Instead, he encounters the Skyllian Blitz, and an opportunity to escape the firing squad...
1. Purgatory

Author note: I'm going to repeat myself at the risk of irritating some; but I do know that the Blitz and Torfan happened the other way round to the way they are in my universe, but I prefer it that way, for reasons of plot that should become reasonably clear.

I'm only going to say this once because it upsets me; I do not own Bioware or it's creations.

I'm only going to say _this_ once because I don't want to seem needy, but reviews do help to show that my work is being appreciated, and that encourages me to write more, so...

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Mass Effect: Vindication

Purgatory

Elysium; named for the realm of Hades in Ancient Greek mythology, where the great and the virtuous dwelt after death. It didn't seem to fit for two Alliance military police personnel. The reason was very specific; they were there to guard Corporal Thaddaeus Shepard in the run up to his trial for war crimes perpetrated during the action on Torfan, against batarian pirates and criminals that had been acting against human colonial shipping, with the unofficial but well known endorsement of the rogue batarian state.

Shepard had been a member of a strike team assigned to eliminate the enemy's commanders, then blow a hole in the front lines for the main force, with the help of another team led by the 95th Marines' CO, a Major Kyle, who were to target what was presumed to be an engineering and maintenance hub. Needless to say, the operation did not run as had been intended. Shepard's squad leader was killed, and the half English, half Greek psychopath had decided that the second in command was not qualified to lead.

Not long after, the second in command was dead, as a result of disagreeing with Shepard's 'suggestion' to fulfil their primary objective and eliminate the batarian Command, crippling the enemy forces and minimising the danger that they'd be able to cause any trouble in future, as opposed to going to the aid of Kyle's squad. Shepard went on to complete the objective and rescue Major Kyle (admittedly somewhat reluctantly), but along the way did some other things that saddled him with the irksome label of 'war criminal'; and all because he hadn't had the sense to kill off one _sodding_ Irishman whilst he'd had the chance. Yes, O'Reilly had been far more of a threat than Shepard had given him credit for, going and sending that evidence to Command...

So now, two months later, he was on the jewel of the Alliance's colonial crown, waiting to attend his trial before the entire galactic community. And he was making Elysium seem a _hell_ of a lot more like Purgatory to his long-suffering guards...

He was leaning against the wall of the large transporter shuttle that they had been provided with solely for the purpose of transporting him, something his guards, at least, were beginning to regret, as it provided him with the opportunity to wax eloquent on the subject of how _incredibly_ gratified he was to be recipient of such a great honour. In fact, he was failing to take the entire business seriously at all, managing to slouch casually, subtly leaning against the movements of the shuttle so that he didn't appear to move _at all_ when it swerved, accelerated and turned through the traffic, having the effect of making him look _entirely _in control in his black ankle length trenchcoat (a trophy from Torfan) and his matching fatigues, in spite of the fact that his wrists were cuffed in front of him. In fact, he looked more in control and at ease than his 'captors'.

One was male, one was female, named Mark and Cameron respectively, both good and dutiful soldiers, the former a spacer and the latter Californian. They bored him, so he annoyed them. Cameron commented that he'd have been better suited to a profession in which the sole purpose was to irritate others as much as possible, even resorting to juvenility if necessary. "But oh, wait, sadly, there's no such job..." She finished mock sorrowfully.

Shepard realised that there was more to her than just a pretty face. There was an absence of tact and foresight and, of course, the rest of her physical aspects which were just as delightful as her face and significantly more so than her wit, which was apparently somewhat disappointing. Shepard knew the type, he'd dealt with physically immature versions of her back in the _good_ old days at the orphanage...

"Sorry, pet. I can already think of four _right _off the top of my head." He held his cuffed wrists up in front of his face, and raised his right index finger. "One; journalism." He raised the index finger on his left hand. "Two; politics." He raised his middle finger on his right hand. "Three; member of the Alliance Admiralty... oh _wait_, two and three are practically the _same_, oh, well..." He raised his middle finger on his left hand. "Four; any aspect of law enforcement." He smirked. "_Particularly _the military police..."

Mark snorted, at least appreciating skilled banter. Shepard grinned at him.

"Shame you can't make the grade for any of them." Cameron retorted spitefully.

"Ooh, watch the heart pet; that one _hurt_." Shepard said, holding his hands in front of his chest mock soulfully. "Well, I suppose the first three are out because of the whole 'war criminal' thing, and I'm afraid I'd never make a policeman, I'd fail their intelligence tests. You see, they don't like having anyone with an IQ of over 100... or is that one-zero-zero in binary, I forget..."

"Laugh it up while you can; I'm looking forward to seeing you in front of a firing squad..." Cameron replied with real venom.

"Do I detect a level of personal investment in my destruction? Surely the Alliance couldn't be so incompetent as to place me in the care of someone who was damaged on a personal level by my actions on that benighted moon? Wait, what on Earth am I talking about, that fits the bill perfectly..."

"My cousin was the second in command of your squad. You know, the one whose authority you usurped, whose orders you disobeyed, the one that you _shot_..."

"If it helps, I wasn't picking on him specifically; I had been going to kill O'Reilly too, but the pirates did that for me." Shepard replied flippantly. His guess was that the Alliance _hadn't_ made a mistake, they wanted him to realise that he'd killed people with thoughts and feelings and families and puppies and other nice things that were _certain _to make him go all teary eyed and remorseful.

The funny thing was, so much of the time, this tactic would have worked. So many soldiers, so many killers in general never seemed to get it into their heads that they were killing someone to whom they could in all probability relate on some level; make them realise that, and their conscience kicks in.

The problem was; Shepard had no illusions on the subject. He knew he'd killed real people and that their deaths would have consequences to more people than just him. The fact was, however, that he didn't much care. He had been there on Torfan, unlike those who would judge him, and he understood, unlike them, that it really had been them or him; he also knew that, if they had been in those circumstances, and had they but the wit to act in order to ensure their survival, many others would have acted in the same way.

But now, he was here for the witch hunt. Certainly, he was guilty, and remorseless, but his actions were defensible from a rational perspective; the only one worth using, and he was to be vilified and persecuted, and most likely shot, unless a third party intervened. His personal hope was for Cerberus; they would be good to work with, concerned with results more than anything as they were, and with the resources to protect him.

However, his _bet_ was that his bastard of a 'benefactor', Henry Lawson, would be the one to intervene. If Shepard but had the options, he would refuse him; there was no love lost between the two of them, due to the incident of Shepard rescuing Lawson's daughter from his tyranny, for a fee naturally, but Shepard preferred to have nothing to do with those who tried to kill him, other than perhaps facilitating their funeral.

The irony was that he was going to be aided, purely inadvertently and indirectly of course, by the very people who had forced his hand, made him step forth from the masses and take action to ensure his survival and the success of his mission; the batarian Hegemony.


	2. Tedium

Author note: I know that this chapter is short, even by my usual standards, and for that, I apologise, but, well... tough.

Tedium

Miranda Lawson was... torn when it came to her latest assignment, though she was loath to admit it to herself, much less to anyone else. The Illusive Man had decided that the Butcher of Torfan had demonstrated talents that meant Cerberus couldn't afford to leave him in anyone else's hands, much less hands that were inclined to execute him, in the case of the Alliance. In light of their history, and her already illustrious service record with the organisation, he had assigned her to retrieve Shepard and bring him into the fold.

She'd been tasked with doing so before; one of her very few failures; one of the very few operations she could _really_ take responsibility for, she thought bitterly. With her advantages, simply _bought_ by her father, _anyone_ could have succeeded to the same extent as her, and some might have done better. Some might have taken a different approach to trying to gain Shepard's trust, or actually succeeded in seducing him, or might have foreseen her father's retaliation and prepared against it, meaning that he wouldn't have captured Shepard.

And therein lay the biggest problem of all; how could she get him to trust _her_ when she felt so very disinclined to trust _him_? His survival and return to the galactic stage could only be the result of a deal with her father, which she was convinced must somehow involve her and Oriana, and the Illusive Man wanted her to bring him into the fold! She wouldn't argue with the necessity; she was possibly more aware of Shepard's value to whichever faction he ended up belonging to than anyone else... but that didn't mean she was happy, not that that had ever been an emotion that she had been overly familiar with in any case.

She forced herself to stop dwelling and returned her attention to her surroundings, before wishing she hadn't. She was using a commercial transport to get to Elysium in order to remain off of the Alliance's radar, but, being used to living in comfort, if not the very lap of luxury itself, she found the atmosphere of canned and recycled air stuffy and unpleasant to inhale, the inevitable squalling infant somewhere within earshot to be infuriating, and the sanitary condition of both the ship's interior and the passengers themselves to be nauseating; and the ship was too damned _small_! How was she supposed to get any privacy in these conditions?

The only way to endure was to concentrate her focus elsewhere, so she thought possible strategies and scenarios for the upcoming mission, which then led to the same internal monologue about the difficulties of the situation. Yet another vicious cycle completed. Wonderful. She reviewed the date/time monitor on her Omni tool for what felt like the billionth time (and the obsolete English billion at that), and groaned internally yet again, before sighing in an attempt to vent some of her frustration, well aware of the futility of such an action.

One hour of the journey remained. She felt that she probably ought to take heart in this news; yet, feeling so close to insanity already, she couldn't see an option that resulted in her disembarking still mentally intact without committing some grievous offences against her fellow passengers.

It was at this point that the pilot addressed the ship over the intercom. Miranda almost relished the introduction of new external stimuli to relieve the monotony to at least some extent, before realising that she was going to have to _really_ concentrate to have any hope of discerning the man's message over that _dratted_ toddler's wailing! She looked down at the floor, staring almost past it with its stains and filth, attempting to fade out the background noise, before realising that her body was emanating that telltale blue glow that meant that she was accessing her biotics.

It had been quite some time since circumstances had interfered with her self control so badly. Three years in fact, going back to the aftermath of her escape from her father...

She jerked her flailing consciousness back to the present, and heard the back end of the pilot's message "We apologise for the inconvenience. Thank you for choosing to fly with Nova Cruises."

Mental self-chastisement put the oaths sounding in her head mildly. She now had the unfortunate knowledge that the incompetent space liner had managed to screw up in some way, but she had no idea how or whether it would even affect her...

She forced herself to descend to the level of addressing one of her fellow passengers.

"Excuse me. Would you mind telling me what the pilot just said, I'm afraid I managed to miss most of it..."

The disheveled, overweight middle aged man turned to look at her with some surprise, his eyes fogged with a drunken haze. Miranda swore inwardly, yet again.

"Cert'nly, beautiful." Miranda forced herself to smile slightly at the compliment in order to cover the disgust and contempt that threatened to consume her.

"Th' thing of it is, th't... th' ship's been delayed, in s'far as that we're not goin' t' be landin' on Elysium. 'Pparently, it's bein' attacked by batarian slavers or somesuch..."

_Shit_.

Miranda ignored the rest of the man's ramblings, her mind already addressing possible solutions to the peril that her mission was in... what was it about Shepard that made everything go wrong when she was involved with him in some way?

There was only one solution that seemed to give her any chance at salvaging the situation...

She got up out of her seat, already accessing her biotics, deliberately this time, and strode in the direction of the cockpit.

She was going to have to hijack the ship...


	3. Blitzkreig

Author note: apologies for the rather slow update; I got somewhat distracted by exams and the like, but now I'm refocused on what's actually important...

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Blitzkrieg

If the universe ever broke and there was going to be an apocalypse, Shepard had an inkling that it would be something like this; one hell of a light show...

The transport had been nearing its destination when it bucked and shuddered before rapidly descending. Shepard was flung back into the wall, braced himself against it and watched his captor's reactions; Mark was taken completely by surprise and unable to react in time; was flung from his feet and unlikely to be given the opportunity to rectify the situation before they hit the ground.

Cameron had surprised him. She regained her balance quickly and braced herself, and, rather than watching or trying to aid her comrade, despite his evident need, her eyes coolly rested on her prisoner. _Someone who takes her objective, or at least her revenge, seriously. We may have more in common than she'd like to think. But then, you never know for certain how people will react until you fling them into a situation headfirst._

The shuttle had hit the ground; all of them were knocked from their feet and flung around the craft. They had all suffered varying degrees of concussion and unconsciousness, Shepard, typically, being the least hurt and the first to recover, the universe being a fickle and untrustworthy creature as it was.

He had assessed the condition of the shuttle; judging by the condition of the divide between the passenger area and the cockpit, the pilot was almost certainly dead, so there would be no way of finding out what had happened from _him_, and the shuttle's electronics were out, which meant they couldn't see outside, windows apparently being too low-tech in this day and age...

He'd stepped forwards, his mind bent towards the main door of the shuttle, thinking that it would likely be possible to power its circuits and open it with an Omni tool, which hopefully he'd be able to take from one of his captors...

The distinctive _click_ of a safety catch being flicked off jerked his attention in the direction of those he had intended to add to his list of victims. Cameron was awake. _Oh, joy..._

"I wonder what the galactic community would think if I just shot you?" She asked in a voice that had Thaddaeus irritated that he hadn't moved sooner. "If I told them you seized the opportunity and tried to escape, and I had no choice?"

"We can find out..." the psychopath had started cautiously, watching her trigger finger intently. "Or," He said somewhat more quickly as it started to move "You could accept my help in ending whatever it is that's attacking this colony, and then we can go on to hold the trial and I get to try something later on and have the pleasure of dealing with you myself. If it helps, it may not even involve death..."

"For all I know, whoever's attacking the colony is here for you!" Cameron scoffed. Shepard had to admit, he was rather hoping for that scenario himself, but doubted that it would be the case. This sort of operation wasn't the style of either Lawson _or_ Cerberus, and the probability of a third party getting involved was low to say the least-

Shepard's train of thought was cut off by the sudden activation of the door's circuits.

From the outside.

_I suppose we'll find out what this is all about now, anyway..._ Shepard had thought abstractly as he watched the door open with clinical detachment, already as physically prepared as he could be without getting shot by Cameron; the damned woman hadn't even shifted her gun away from his head.

The door had opened-

To reveal a pair of Alliance marines, presumably part of his external escort. Beyond them was one _hell_ of a lightshow; the city, perhaps the entire _colony_, was under attack by a large number of spacecraft that appeared to be criminal in nature and intent on blasting everything jutting out of the ground with sufficient ammunition to raze it, regardless of whether it was organic or structural in nature.

One of the humans was crouched by the door of the shuttle, his Omni tool still interfacing with the machine, the other was facing into the shuttle, rifle ready to fire.

_Are any of these people __**ever**__ going to get complacent or trusting or am I going to have to start putting a little faith in the human race?_ Shepard ranted rhetorically in his head, and a picosecond later, his wish was granted-both men were suddenly riddled with bullets, their shields apparently already down.

"Does anyone else find it funny that the universe seems to like me for some reason-" Shepard started to quip, before he decided that it wasn't particularly appropriate today.

A batarian had just stepped into their line of sight, and, from the sadistic grin on his face and the direction his gun was pointed in, it seemed likely that he could see them, too.

"Greetings, Butcher." The alien spat, relishing the moment before it pulled the trigger-

Only to be put down by a long burst of an assault rifle fired accurately into its face.

Mark clambered to his feet, somewhat shakily, and pushed the Californian's gun out of Shepard's face. The look Cameron shot him told Shepard two things; first, she had _really_ been looking forward to putting a bullet in his skull, which was both curiously satisfying and not a particularly auspicious omen, and second, that they were _rather_ more familiar than Alliance protocol allowed for.

_Hypocrites..._ Shepard sniffed mentally.

"I think we're gonna need him." Mark said apologetically.

"Lover boy's right, pet. So were you. This one's about yours truly, so why don't we go see what they want?"

If looks could kill, Cameron would already have been dead before she could end Shepard with her venomous glance. She jerked her head, non-verbally ordering the convict out of the shuttle and into a warzone.

"Hmm, let me think about that... no. No, I'm not going anywhere at least until you take these cuffs off, though I'm not going to get my hopes up enough for a weapon..." _You're not scared enough. Yet._

Mark obliged, and Shepard darted off of the shuttle, immediately absorbing as much of his surroundings as he could; _Batarian team leaving building, aware of presence, though not currently within effective firing range-scratch that, sniper-_

Shepard flung himself to the floor all of a second before a high velocity round buzzed angrily over his head, before rolling to his feet and immediately picking up the corpse of one of the marines as portable cover-their shields might have been dead, but the armour, meat and bone would do more to stop bullets than his coat.

Without bothering to pause for his captors and comrades, he crossed the street and moved for the entrance to a building and the less temporary safety that it offered, as well as attempting to put some distance between him and the aliens. As he did so, the batarians entered effective range for their weaponry and firing skill, and Thaddaeus felt his 'meat shield' shuddering under the impacts. He quickened his pace, concerned that a lucky shot might puncture the armour and retain sufficient velocity to continue and hit _him_.

He managed to reach a building which had sufficiently large ground floor windows for him to fit through, as predictably, most inhabitants had locked their doors. He launched the dead marine at the window with sufficient force to break the glass, then dived through after the corpse, managing to clear the area of the floor covered with shards of glass. Recognising a crude potential weapon, he carefully selected a few of the larger, more jagged shards and put them in his coat pockets, before dragging the marine further into the room, away from the windows, and inspecting the Omni tool processor on the man's left wrist.

Unfortunately, the computer was linked to a power source that was embedded in the man's armour, but, theoretically, it should be possible to provide sufficient power to be able to eject the processor and power cell with another Omni tool, at which point Shepard thought it possible that he'd be able to cannibalise a computer of his own, which would be helpful as his own had been confiscated.

The issue was whether his guards would see it that way.

A cacophony of gunfire and curses announced their presence, backing quickly away from the larger, advancing force of batarians, ducking and scrambling to attempt to avoid being hit, and firing wildly in a sloppy attempt to discourage pursuit. Mark was first into the building, clambering awkwardly through the window before quickly moving out of the way so that Cameron could hurl herself through behind him.

Not bothering to wait for them to recover, Shepard spoke up. "Could I possibly have use of an Omni tool?"

They responded simultaneously, and predictably, Mark with "Why?" somewhat cautiously, Cameron with a scornful "No."

Ignoring the latter rather pointedly, Shepard held up the dead marine's wrist and shook it so that the man's hand moved in a rather morbid and grotesque imitation of a wave. Mark winced, and carefully focussed his gaze on Shepard's smug, scarred face, lips quirked in a smirk at the man's discomfort.

"I was hoping to cannibalise an Omni tool. I need you to extract the processing chip and the power cell."

Cameron butted in "And then you'll have a weapon. Just what we need..."

"Actually, yes. You may not have connected the dots, but the nice people attacking the colonies are all members of the batarian species. I happen to be rather good at killing batarians." _And everything else..._

"And the people on your side." Cameron retorted.

"Wouldn't have killed them if I didn't need to; after all, look at where it left me, and right now, you two are a couple of extra hands to hold guns, which currently improves my chance of survival rather drastically. So, what do you say?" Shepard's hands went into his pockets, aware that this was the point at which they would either elect to shoot him or grant him some small freedoms.

Then, a device sailed through the window and clattered onto the ground that rather changed the nature of the situation.

A stun grenade.


	4. Robbery, Assault and Battery

Author note: Another short one, I know. So sue me. Except you can't. Yay for anonymity...

Edit: different version, as Miranda was a bit out of character in the original. Sorry, I was intoxicated...

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Robbery, Assault and Battery

The biotics made her advance on the cockpit significantly easier. Despite the fact that humans and aliens alike had had at minimum decades to become more accepting of the idea that there were those among them that could do things that appeared practically magical in nature, that time had done nothing to dull the suspicion and fear that biotics were treated with; all it had done was demonstrate the wisdom of exercising caution when dealing with said 'gifted' individuals.

As such, the blue aura surrounding her already striking figure did much to clear a path, in all likelihood helped by the fact that those who were slow to move were given a flat look that gave them the impression that this woman didn't see you as a person, more an obstacle to be removed so that she could move on to more important issues.

The security that was guarding the cockpit, as safety protocol dictated, aimed their guns at her as soon as they saw her. Not breaking her stride, she _slammed_ both of them into bulkheads, skulls first, with sufficient force to induce unconsciousness... and possibly brain damage. Mentally, Miranda urged herself to calm down. Technically, this wasn't going to be a public commercial flight once she'd taken the ship... hopefully that would help.

She retrieved one of the security personnel's shotguns, disliking the weapon for its crudity but recognising her limited options and unwilling to waste it, before turning to the heavily reinforced door that protected the pilot's cabin. Something about simply smashing the door in with raw biotic force appealed to her, but she dismissed the idea as needlessly strenuous and risky, and hacked the protocol with her Omni tool, before rising and moving through the door, shotgun raised.

The pilot was practically a nervous wreck, having watched her progress via the passenger surveillance devices, and clearly in no state to be in control of a spacecraft, particularly not one that hadn't been built for combat but was going to experience it regardless. Fortunately, she had never had any intention of allowing him to do anything of the sort. She pulled him from his seat with careful gravity manipulation in order to avoid damaging equipment, before sending him out of the cockpit, and utilising her Omni tool to shut the door and erect further firewalls to improve the network's paltry security.

Seating herself at the controls, she activated the intercom, allowing herself a moment to deal with the hysterical passengers before she salvaged her assignment.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have taken the vessel, and are now on a course to the original destination of Elysium. If you cooperate, you will not be harmed. Return to your seats and remain quiet until instructed otherwise."

She had embellished the number of hijackers in order to induce a greater dose of fear that would increase the likelihood of compliance with her requests, allowing the passenger's imaginations to embellish further as they willed, the human mind being prone to imagining that which it fears the most if one allows it to. The passengers returned to their seats and became quiet, although there was a quiet buzz of speech that would be difficult to pinpoint. Possibly some more determined or foolish individuals were plotting to reclaim the ship, but she didn't need to worry at this stage; everyone was seated and she'd notice if anyone approached the cockpit, at which point she could deal with them as the situation warranted. She set a course for Elysium and jumped the vessel into FTL.

During the remaining hour of the journey, she scanned the extranet for details on the attack on Elysium. Apparently, the Alliance was responding, but sluggishly, and the batarians were wreaking havoc on the ground. In other news, Thaddaeus Shepard, the psychopathic Butcher of Torfan, was missing, along with his guard detail.

Beyond that was nothing more than unverified rumour and hazy, untrustworthy details. She refused to believe that the bastard was dead until she'd seen his corpse for herself; and at this point she was unsure as to whether she'd be upset about it.

Moments before she exited FTL, the situation was thus; the Alliance had scrambled sufficient ships to be able to launch a counter strike against the batarian flotilla, but were unable to deploy ground units. The Operative's plan was quite simply to land her vessel at Shepard's last known co-ordinates, and follow the trail of bodies, be they human or batarian. She was well aware of the probability that her ship wouldn't breeze through the combat zone unscathed, but it was a chance she had no choice but to take.

"This time, I have to save the psychopath..." She muttered, bracing herself, glancing around the cockpit to ensure-again-that all was prepared. On the surveillance screens, a group of young men had left their seats and were advancing on the cockpit. Exasperatedly, Miranda activated the intercom.

"Return to your seats. This vessel is about to enter a combat zone. You will not be given a further opportunity to comply." Their response was to jeer incoherently at the cameras, something about 'bluffing'. She muted the surveillance systems, and returned her attention to the controls; she didn't have time to deal with these _boys_ anymore...

The commercial transport vessel exited FTL.


	5. The Enemy of My Enemy

The Enemy of My Enemy...

Shepard's immediate response to the appearance of the grenade was to turn away and dive to the ground, covering his eyes. The marines attempted something similar, he saw, but didn't see the results before the grenade detonated.

Even behind his arm, and eyelids, turned away as he was, Shepard could 'see' the flash that had been intended to blind him, and he _definitely_ heard and felt the detonation, disrupting the fluids in his ears, interfering with his balance and deafening him; and he'd been further away from the blast. He rolled over, somewhat more clumsily than he would have been comfortable with in other circumstances, his hands having already retrieved the glass shards from his pockets as he tried to formulate a strategy for the batarian assault that would occur within a second-

The aliens moved, stood framed against the shattered window, firing before they had even seen their targets, though fortunately their aim was high. They were armoured, and probably shielded. Shepard decided flight would have been a better option, but dismissed the recrimination as pointless, focussing instead on trying to regain his orientation in order to fight effectively-

He was given some time, as Mark rolled over, partially blinded and utterly disorientated, and started firing his assault rifle at where he thought the window was. Unfortunately, he was about a foot off, and missed the batarians woefully, but startled the enemy sufficiently for Shepard to force himself up onto his feet, facing the numerous and better equipped sentients with nothing more than the two knife-like shards of glass in his hands. He doubted they'd even breach their kinetic barriers, let alone their armour, and the probability that in his current state he'd even be able to throw them accurately was low, let alone hit something vital.

The batarians seemed to have realised that, too, because rather than shooting, they were laughing.

This relieved and annoyed the psychopath. _If I survive this, I'm going to get a gun if I have to kill those paranoid pissants to do it._

Shepard threw his blades, attempting to send them scything through the air towards the alien's eyes. Somehow, they went on target, probably helped by the biotics that he couldn't actually use consciously, though at this point he would've rather appreciated such a skill. Despite the fact that the alien's knew that the projectiles were harmless, their subconscious's seemed unwilling to take the risk, as he had hoped, and they flinched and began to duck before regaining control. In any case, this gave him the moment he needed to move, before they could re-aim and open fire

It was too far to the nearest viable cover.

It was too far to close with the enemy.

It was _not_, however, too far to the still non functional Cameron. And her gun.

Shepard threw himself forwards, balance _still_ off, unfortunately, managing to land badly, half on Cameron, half on the broken glass, opening bloody gashes in the palm of his left hand, the one that had her pistol within reach. Shepard wasn't ambidextrous, but he'd trained himself to shoot with both hands to the point where he almost could have been.

Circumstances weren't exactly conducive to his best work, however.

He snatched up the gun, trying to get a decent grip on it without wasting time, before aiming it in the general direction of the enemy, having no time to aim properly, and firing a sloppy barrage that was sufficiently imprecise to hit most of the enemy, naturally only weakening their kinetic barriers, but enough to have them sink into cover around the window, making their fire inaccurate for another precious second so that Shepard had the time to swap the gun from his left hand to his right, the grip slippery from blood and sweat but preferable to the previous arrangement and allowing greater accuracy.

He'd need it, effectively outnumbered and outgunned to an unnerving degree while the two marines who had suffered more from the grenade's effects were effectively useless.

Useless as allies, perhaps...

Shepard scrambled up off of Cameron, then, one handed, still firing on the batarian positions, started to drag her backwards, a job made difficult by her armour, though it was easier that it would have been to attempt the same thing with Mark, if nothing else due to the likelihood of getting shot, as the man still hadn't stopped firing.

The batarians, however, had finally found the nerve to take up the attitude and associated strategy that would make Shepard's life most difficult. That of 'He can't get us all'. Simultaneously, all of them rose up out of cover to unleash a rain of bullets to which Shepard had no response but one.

He put Cameron in the way.

Her barriers shuddered and failed almost instantly whilst he picked off two if the enemy with headshots as quickly as he could, still retreating inward towards cover, before, to what was likely to be his eternal shame-

He fucking _tripped_. Clumsily stumbled backwards under the force of the fire that was impacting against his shield; there wasn't even an obstacle behind him that had caused it. Things got worse from there. He lost his grip on his shield, she fell off to one side and he couldn't risk increasing his exposed profile to try and use her as cover again. The batarians, concerned that their prey might put sufficient distance between themselves and their predators to escape, moved into the building. And finally, even as Mark finally managed to shake off the affects of the stun grenade, his weapon overheated.

The one positive of the situation was that now, Shepard calculated the odds of getting ripped to pieces before he reached the enemy were slightly less than 100%; something of a novelty during this fiasco.

The desperation, the casting around for ideas and solutions, the adrenaline, had all been translated into a cold, stoic sentiment that could only really be summed up as 'My turn'. Shepard grinned. It was not a happy omen for others.

The batarians' collective attention was divided between the delightful prospect of a helpless victim and a remaining threat. They failed to act as a cohesive unit when Shepard got up. Even then, a lack of hesitation would have ended him with a decent shot from an assault rifle; yet they didn't seem to realise that he had no shields. He could put that to use, at least.

No shots, yet. That would unify their focus onto him as a significant threat and reduce his chances of getting in close; those that were watching him hadn't yet informed their comrades. Their mistake.

He moved, strafing to the right in order to avoid moving into the peripheral vision of those concerned with Mark, closing rapidly with the group that faced him. They opened fire. He ran faster, and opened up with his own firearm, reckoning that he was just about close enough to survive the involvement of the entire group, numbering an estimated ten aliens, estimated because he'd not had a moment to concentrate on a count, with all of his higher functions focussed solely on survival.

He shot the batarian he was approaching in the torso a few times, rendering interference from the kinetic barrier negligible and interfering with his capacity to shoot the approaching human accurately, before Shepard was into close quarters, grabbed the rifle and forced it aside, before adjusting his grip on his pistol in order to deal a quick pair of blows to the alien's equivalent of a temple with the gun's grip, sending him tumbling backwards, before Thaddaeus slickly readjusted his grip and shot him in the face and yanked the assault rifle from the corpse's grasp, discarding the pistol in favour of the larger weapon, which he then used to batter down the next batarian's shields before rendering his face a bloody pulp.

The next alien was approaching _him_, armed with a shotgun, but never made it into effective range for his weapon to kill. Shepard focussed his fire on the creature's feet whilst advancing, and the force was sufficient to make the creature trip, at which point Shepard crushed his foe's windpipe with a quick stomp to the throat before lashing out immediately at the alien's nearest comrade with a boot, catching him in the midriff with sufficient force to double him up, at which point the human stepped forwards, used his assault rifle to choke him, before snapping his neck with a vicious wrench of his arms.

Instead of letting the batarian's corpse fall, he pushed it upright again, and used it as another meat shield, firing his rifle one handed into the other group that had been focussed on his other marine guard. They were caught in the open even as he had been, and were even more lacking in options, particularly when Mark staggered upright and began to open fire with his cooling rifle.

Within a few moments, the enemy was dead.

Shepard sought to control his breathing again, succeeded, and nodded at his guard, who was gaping slightly. "You're welcome." He said, before examining his left hand, still bleeding but beginning the clotting process. He sucked on the wound, finding the taste of his own blood curiously reinvigorating.

"You're worse than the batarians..." Cameron said, from somewhere behind him, incredulously.

"One does one's best."


	6. Unauthorised Access

Unauthorised Access

Miranda's hijacked ship exited FTL over Elysium, and was immediately hailed by Alliance forces.

"Unidentified vessel, this is an active combat zone. You are to re-enter FTL immediately and travel to another occupied system. If you do not comply you may be fired upon."

_So much for staying off of their radar..._ Miranda considered her options. If she responded, there was an increased risk that the Alliance would become aware of her agenda here, and that could lead to Cerberus being compromised. On the other hand, if she failed to respond, they would be likely to assume that the vessel was hostile, hijacked by batarians. Then again, if she spoke up and tried to bluff her way through as a distraught civilian or something of the sort, it was likely that they'd suspect something of the sort in any case.

She couldn't afford to risk it. Instead, she pulled up the copy of Shepard's preorganised timetable that the Illusive Man had been able to obtain from some of his Alliance contacts, and, combined with data of when the batarians struck, allowed her to ascertain the point at which she would have to begin her search. She set a course for the capital, and was promptly hailed again by the Alliance, as well as having a squad of fighters directed onto an intercept course with her vessel.

"Unidentified vessel, this is your last warning. You are to leave this system for the duration of the conflict. Failure to comply will result in your being fired upon."

Again, she failed to respond.

"Unidentified ship, you have been marked as 'hostile' on our targeting computers, without information telling us otherwise, you will be fired upon."

The fighter squadron of three ships accelerated and altered their course to cut the ship off from the planet.

On paper, it was overkill. Three modern Alliance fighters detailed to disable or destroy a decrepit commercial passenger vessel. The fighters had weaponry, better engines and performance and could take more of a beating. If she were even to get a _taste_ of Elysium's atmosphere, Miranda knew, she would have to act fast and fly well. Fortunately, flight had been included in the instruction provided to her by her father, and she was one of the best in the galaxy... as well as having rather more than rocks for brains, which was more than could be said for most of those whose stats beat hers.

She sent the ship into atmosphere at a steep angle, apparently desperate to reach atmosphere and the ground as quickly as possible, indicating a level of inexperience with space combat. The Alliance pilots knew their craft could out perform their target, so went in even steeper, daring her to follow suit, as she had intended. She did, and a game of 'chicken' was apparently going to be played; who would pull up out of atmosphere first, the loser being the one that was burned to a cinder or shot out of the sky. The odds appeared to be against her.

As she reached the lower end of the thermosphere, the craft began to protest at the air resistance it was undergoing, and she pulled the angle of the craft's descent up, resulting in the craft 'skipping' up out of the planet's atmosphere and putting distance between her and her pursuers, buying her time.

The pilots reacted quickly, she couldn't deny, and their superior craft were following hers within moments, but by then, she already had twenty second's worth of distance between them, enough to begin a descent that wouldn't burn up her craft or send her back out into space again.

She descended into the mesosphere, made it into the upper stratosphere by pushing her craft to its limits, but then they caught her and opened fire, no longer willing to take chances or underestimate their opponent. She kept her ship intact by wrenching it through manoeuvres that it had never been designed to do, allowing the ship's meagre civilian shields to take some of the hits and avoiding the rest-just. However, it wouldn't be more than a second before they deployed missiles, and she had no countermeasures. It was time to deploy her failsafe.

She activated the ship's communicator, and started broadcasting on as many of the Alliance channels as it could handle, hooking up the surveillance to the stream before blurting desperately

"-repeat, can anyone hear me? They're jamming our communications! They've killed the security guards and are trying to hijack the ship! We need to land on Elysium!"

The effect on the fighters was impressive to behold. Their flight paths jerked and spasmed, mimicking their pilots as they stiffened and hesitated in surprise, at seeing a group of young men, one armed with a shotgun, attempting to break into the cockpit of the ship, the two guards lying motionless nearby. They stopped firing, attempted to communicate with the ship as Miranda's lips twitched in triumph and she headed for the location from which Shepard had disappeared, silently thanking the boys for their unwitting aid.

She saw the devastation on the ground, which rather darkened the mood, and she dismissed her victory from her mind, moving on to the next problem; getting off of the ship. Easily done...

She deactivated the inertial dampeners on the ship, allowing her passengers to experience the force of her turns and decelerations as she manoeuvred her vessel at high speeds, in order to land it before the Alliance's fighters received new instructions in light of the transmission.

Her tactic rapidly induced unconsciousness on her passengers, as well as tossing the boys who would have interfered with her around the ship, hopefully without doing too much damage, while she managed to escape with mild nausea; she had an exceptional resistance to g-force due to her father's genetic tailoring. All of it was useful, but it made it impossible to escape him, and to do that she'd almost be willing to sacrifice everything he'd ever given her, everything that made her useful to Cerberus. Almost. The galaxy was bigger than her and her little miseries...

She landed the ship, and quickly left before the Alliance's fighters could scan the ship and find out it's pilot had gone.

Time to follow the corpses...


	7. Complications

Complications

Shepard searched the corpses, relieving them of explosives and knives and depositing them on the ground nearby, classed by type and in order of utility. However, this wasn't the main goal of his search. Then, he found the batarian sniper. With a contented sigh, he relieved the alien of his weapon, and gave it a quick look over. A Lightening Strike sniper rifle, heavily upgraded so that it was more of an anti-materiel rifle than the anti-personnel snipers that Shepard was more accustomed to, yet it had also had its efficiency streamlined in order to handle relatively rapid fire without overheating.

Shepard searched the alien, knowing that a person with a rifle of this calibre would be especially careful in its maintenance, and found his kit, before using the rag to carefully clean the rifle of blood, seeming to the marines watching to almost be _caressing_ the weapon. He could sense their discomfort.

"Thought I might call her Vera. Wait, no, ELE..." He said, turning around to grin at them.

"Ellie?" Mark asked, curious in spite of himself. It seemed somewhat out of character, as a name for a psychopath's gun.

"Spelt E.L.E. Acronym for Extinction Level Event." Shepard said, the grin turning wolfish.

"You _name_ your weapons?"

"Only when they're this pretty." Shepard said, a mocking undercurrent in his voice. He sighed. "Do you two _ever_ have _any_ fun? I mean aside from the-"

"Great..." Mark interrupted hurriedly, so that Cameron wouldn't try to kill Shepard and the Butcher wouldn't succeed in killing _her_. "So, what now?" Mark asked, as Shepard scavenged a pistol as his side-arm, along with a couple of knives that were appropriately balanced for throwing and the best of the explosives. The MP was clearly not used to having no orders to follow. Shepard was fine with that; it meant he'd be easy to persuade to follow his 'suggestions'.

"My suggestion, given the apparently somewhat haphazard nature of the batarian assault, would be to set up an insurgence movement to counter them with maximum efficiency. We don't have anything like enough people to do that, though, so we'll need to pick up some other people that are still fighting."

"What if there aren't any?" Cameron said, probably just being confrontational for the sake of it whilst she tried to come to terms with the terrifying spectacle she'd witnessed in the slaughter Shepard had inflicted on the enemy.

Shepard looked at her flatly, allowed silence to fall, and gave a moment before they could hear gunfire. Quite a lot of it.

"I'd say it's a fairly safe bet." He said condescendingly. "Questions? Comments? Criticisms? No? Then shut up and follow me..."

Despite his relative physical youth and the fact that he'd been with the Alliance for a little more than two years, Shepard had already been an assassin for a decade; he knew most, if not all, of the tricks of the trade, making him ideally suited for infiltration work. As such, he quickly and efficiently led his two guards out of the area without making any contact with the enemy, and led them towards what he estimated to be the largest concentrated amount of gunfire.

About five hundred metres away, however, he realised something that wasn't particularly comforting. Despite the fact that they were getting closer to the source of the noise, it was actually decreasing in volume, which, when he concentrated for a moment, transpired not to be an effect of the conflict moving away from them, but fewer and fewer guns being involved.

_Either good or pretty fucking bad..._ He mused, before turning briefly to hiss to his apparently oblivious captors to hurry. They picked up the pace, but failed to navigate their way to the 'hot spot' before the gunfire cut out entirely. His 'comrades' finally cottoned on to the meaning of this, and steeled themselves for the worst.

Shepard led the way into a building that would overlook the aftermath of the skirmish, quickly ensuring that it was clear before ascending to a high window to give him a suitable vantage point. He scanned the area down the sniper rifle scope, and, as he had rather cynically predicted, found a large number of human corpses.

"Wundebar." He muttered in flawless German, before movement caught his attention in his peripheral vision. He shifted around to focus on it, and found that the remaining batarians were moving off again, though there were rather too many of them for the skirmish to have gone on for as long as it did. Then, there was the way those in the middle were huddled together and more shuffling than moving.

Thaddaeus swore vehemently, realising the most likely explanation.

"Civilians." He said, the very word distasteful to him. Civilians were at best an awkward addition to a battlefield, always complicating matters, particularly when they were in enemy hands. Then he revived from his reverie, and remembered that he wasn't alone and that his company had a rather less pragmatic approach to warfare than his own.

"We need to help them." Mark said.

_Ah, shit..._

"Not the most practical approach." He commented immediately, without turning around, vainly hoping that he might be able to dissuade at least one of them so that they could avoid the chain of events that this would lead to. "We don't need non-combatants, and they're clearly in no immediate danger. My guess is that they're going to be taken as slaves; they won't be killed yet, that would jeopardise the profit. Better would be to gather strength and then try to relocate them once there are more than three of us so that we'll be able to do more than get ourselves, and most likely them, killed." He realised that his clinical approach might not be the best one for that moment, belatedly, but realised that pretending to care at this point would likely only make them suspect that he was attempting to manipulate them.

"Prudence? Coming from the Butcher of Torfan, the man who single handedly charged a group of batarians, outnumbered ten to one not half an hour ago?" Mark said, in a crude attempt to goad him and hopefully boost morale, as well as establish his own authority.

"Never liked the nickname, which you'd know if you ever tried to follow current events, and what's more, not half an hour ago, that approach was the one that gave the best odds of survival. They weren't good, but they were better than any other, and it worked out OK. The best approach that increases our odds of survival the most _here_, is to walk away, for the time being at least. There are people out there who could use our assistance just as much, and provide help in return, and you want to commit suicide here because you _saw_ these people first." Shepard allowed contempt to creep into his voice. Compassion had no place on the battlefield, if it even had a place in the universe at all. Something the psychopath doubted very much.

He heard the sounds that he had come to associate with weapons being raised; two sets of them. He sighed, but forced himself to keep from tensing. Despite what the two humans behind him might like to think, his chances of survival were better taking them on and then going his own way than they were going on their futile little errand.

Another movement caught his eye on the other side of the street, and he quickly examined it through ELE's scope, wary (and hopeful) of a batarian sniper that he could use to confuse the issue.

What he saw startled him, to say the least.

_Well, well, well. Miranda Lawson._

The woman hadn't changed much in the five years since they'd last seen each other; she carried a bit more maturity in the eyes, something that Shepard was mildly impressed by, given the apparently arduous nature of her upbringing.

The other thing that impressed him was that she was looking right back at him. Aside from her appearance, of course; she was still aesthetically perfect, (with a _little_ more physical maturity that was really no bad thing)... and still a tad distracting, but now that he was past puberty he could cope.

She shook her head. Shepard knew that she could see what was happening and had guessed his current train of thought. She hoped to dissuade him.

_Run with it for now; she's here to retrieve you for Cerberus, and she probably has data that I don't..._ Shepard said to himself, silently. _Besides which, a victory for humanity is a victory for Cerberus which is good for me. She'll provide support; she can't afford my getting killed._

He lowered the rifle, and turned to face his 'allies'. "Have it your way..."

_For now..._


	8. Overwatch

Overwatch

Miranda relaxed slightly as Shepard turned and refrained from ripping his guards to shreds. Metaphorically of course; such a needlessly vicious action wasn't really the so-called 'Butcher of Torfan's' style. The civilians the batarians had taken were the surviving passengers on the transport; they wouldn't be here if not for her; she was responsible for their fate, and whilst she wouldn't sacrifice Shepard for them, she wouldn't simply allow them to die, or leave with Shepard and allow a key human colony to burn.

It wasn't what Cerberus stood for. What _she_ stood for...

She followed them, keeping to the shadows, staying above them where she could to watch for batarian obstacles, and where she couldn't be seen by the Alliance's guards. _He _knew she was there, though, occasionally looked for her, and invariably found her within a few seconds of beginning the search. If it were anyone else, it would have made her feel insecure.

She noted a batarian squad of five moving in the same direction as the group with the captives; their path would converge with Shepard's soon, according to the map on her Omni tool. She didn't doubt that Shepard could cope with them, especially with his rifle, but any gunfire would reveal their pursuit to the batarians with the civilians, cause them to move faster and leave surprises in their wake that would reduce their chances of catching them to nigh zero. Even if they did, the batarians would be ready, and in all likelihood their attack would result in their deaths and the deaths of the civilians.

Something had to be done, and she couldn't simply communicate something of this complexity to Shepard with a gesture.

She needed to talk to him...

* * *

A few pigeons suddenly flew from their perches, above them, not far from where Miss Lawson had last been watching them. Shepard reacted immediately, sinking into shadow and sweeping the buildings through ELE's scope, considering the possibilities as he did so.

_Enemy action? Unlikely that Lawson would overlook something so close. Mistake on her part? Again, unlikely. Most likely; she wants to communicate something urgent, therefore enemy action up ahead, but I'll need details..._

"Stay here. If you hear gunfire, assistance would most likely be appreciated." He said tersely, rising to make for the building from whence the signal had come. "Just remember to only shoot the people not wearing a trenchcoat without a sniper rifle that have two eyes..." He shot, looking pointedly at Cameron, before taking his leave.

"Bastard." She said.

"Effective bastard, though." Mark said, somewhat reluctantly. "I'm surprised the Alliance isn't covering it up, or faking his death, or something; they'd love to have someone like that on their side..."

"Someone like _that_ isn't on any side other than their own. But they'd try to use him; they might even succeed. Be glad that politics means they can't."

"Yeah..."

* * *

Shepard moved through the building silently, confirming that each and every room that he passed was empty before he moved on; paranoia in such circumstances as his was a sign of a _healthy_ brain, whatever a psychiatrist might have said had they gotten their hands on him. Before he started messing with their _own_ sanity, of course...

The building was apparently empty. He reached the balcony on which the birds had been startled; it was empty. He sighed, his right hand straying subtly down to the thigh holster that held the heavy pistol, whilst he rested ELE on his shoulder.

"Do we really have time for this melodrama?"

"No, we don't." Miranda said from behind him. "It's been quite a while." She noted.

He turned his head slightly to look at her from his peripheral vision; she had him covered with a heavy pistol. Unlike against the marines, he didn't fancy his chances _quite_ as much...

"I was certain you were dead." She continued. "Foolish, given how my father is; never wastes a single chess piece when he can use them for himself..."

"We made a deal." Shepard admitted. "He lets me go, I join the Alliance, and I owe him some unspecified favours and kill you if I encounter you."

"And?"

"Honour is such an archaic concept, don't you think? Besides, I tend not to be overly concerned with the happiness of those who inconvenience me..." She lowered the gun. He allowed his hand to move away from his own sidearm.

"There's a batarian squad that's moving on a convergent path to yours. We can't let them link up with the main force given their numerical advantage, and gunfire or explosions would give away our existence."

"You have a plan I take it?"

"A few technical difficulties, a little light knife-work..."

"Lead on, then."

They moved quickly to get ahead of the enemy squad, and set up a rudimentary ambush; Miranda waited on one side of the street, in a dark building, having disabled the lights. Shepard loitered opposite, ELE carefully concealed as a potential encumbrance, knives drawn.

The enemy squad moved up the street quickly but cautiously, scanning their surroundings for a sign of enemy activity, unaware that their efforts were in vain. They were well spread out in order to reduce vulnerability to enemy action, having to resort to their communications units to keep in touch. This actually worked in the favour of the two humans lying in wait; Miranda jammed their frequency with her Omni tool, preventing them from calling for help or communicating with each other.

This did, however, alert the squad to enemy activity in the area. They subdivided into two groups, a two and a three, and scouted the buildings on either side of the street. Shepard wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disappointed when he found that he would be 'receiving' the duo. He waited halfway up a stairwell, watched them enter, one watching the front, the other acting as rearguard. They never gave the floors above them more than a cursory glance, a common mistake that Shepard was certain that he would _never_ make; given the number of times he had exploited it.

He dropped down in between the two aliens, landing with a moderately heavy thud that immediately caused them to whirl instinctively towards the source, the one in front spinning to find a knife thudding into his throat from behind his kinetic barriers, the rearguard raising his weapon to have it quickly rendered useless by a few lightening modifications by expert hands. He opened his mouth to yell a defiant cry that would alert his comrades, but was silenced before he had even really begun by a knife thrust quickly under the chin, piercing through the bottom and roof of the mouth and entering the brain.

Miranda waited in darkness for the group of three to enter the room. Their conduct was moderately impressive; one on the door, ready to open it and then get out of the way, one to face whatever was lying in wait on the other side of the door, the last acting as rearguard.

They breached.

Nothing happened; no gunfire, no blue flare of biotics, no sudden blows. They relaxed slightly as they approached the next room-

Miranda moved, stepped out of the shadows, seized the rearguard's rifle and dealt him a lightening blow to the head, heavily reinforced by biotics, that left his head jerked back at an unnatural angle with an ugly _crunch_. The other two turned at the noise and the glow, weapons raised, though the alien furthest from her dared not fire for fear of injuring his comrade.

Miranda struck again, gracefully moving forwards to assault the batarian before her before dropping as she reached him to be beneath his retaliation, dealing a sharp blow to the side of the knee to put him off balance before launching him into the wall with a powerful biotic throw. However, as an internal divide, it's structural integrity was poor and the alien carried on going, flying out of a window to land in the street with a crash.

Even as she had thrown the second foe, however, the Operative had arisen again to knock the final batarian's rifle aside with a smooth spinning kick, the motion of which she continued to twist past the heavy blow aimed at her before she aimed a careful strike through the joint in the alien's armour at the shoulder, leaving that arm numb and that entire side vulnerable to her coup de grace, a blow to the temple that allowed the Operative to create a small biotic field _inside_ the batarian's brain, instantly rendering him a catatonic vegetable. She crushed his windpipe where he lay.

Shepard cleaned his blades on undamaged areas of batarian flesh, pausing when he heard some crashes nearby, then retrieving ELE before leaving the building, to find Miranda waiting for him.

"Bit noisy." He commented on her work, without thinking of the ramifications. Her eyebrows shot up expressively. He winced inwardly.

"Not everyone can be a sniper with extensive experience of close quarters combat." She commented sardonically.

"Circumstances were against me." Shepard retorted. The implication stung slightly, but he allowed himself a wry grin. Then he noted the rifle she cradled.

"I can hardly provide long distance aid with a pistol, now can I?" She said, seeing his glance.

"Did I say anything? I just felt that it was something of an anomaly for you to be using such a weapon."

"That's because it's difficult to conceal them, and I tend to work undercover as opposed to avoiding the enemy altogether."

"Must be particularly difficult with _your_ wardrobe." Shepard chuckled, unable to resist the potential of the jibe.

"My appearance is an asset to be exploited like any other." She said, ignoring his snide tone of voice.

"Oh, I quite agree..."

_Ass._

"Get back to your squad."

"You mean my captors. So eager to break off the reunion already?"

She looked at him flatly. "This is no time for levity, Shepard. You can be frivolous when human lives aren't at stake."

"Human lives are _always_ at stake." He retorted, even as he turned to leave, determined to have the last word for some juvenile reason. "Spoilsport..."


	9. Antiheroics

Antiheroics

"Where the _fuck _have you been? We looked for you, and you were gone. We thought you'd run..."

"Nice to see you Mark; I'm glad I'm not dead, too." Shepard responded easily, ignoring the guns pointed at him. "I was off killing batarians."

"Then why didn't we hear gunfire?" Cameron asked, apparently triumphant in having confirmed her suspicions of Shepard's dishonesty.

"_Oh._ You've got me there... Ah, I remember now, that _might_ be because I didn't use my guns, because I'm not a bloody fool that wants to broadcast my position. Look, I'm finding this twenty questions business tiresome, and you've got commoners to save, so shall we skip to the proof?" He said, before waving his left hand in her face; now covered with freshly clotting batarian blood as well as his own that had dried long since. The Californian recoiled.

"Oh, grow up. It's blood. It's the blood of the enemy; the kind we're supposed to spill, the kind we're paid to spill. We're soldiers and I've been a killer for much longer than that. If that upsets you; you're in the wrong line of work."

"We're military police. We're supposed to keep people like you in line." Mark stated, putting his arm around her.

"Jumping to the defence of your squeeze; how very _chivalrous_. Reckon she'll let you jump _her _later? You should know as well as I do that the police kill almost as many as the soldiers and they get away with it better, too. I'd almost think I was in the wrong line of work were it not for the fact that they don't want their people to be able to beat a medieval village idiot in the brains department. And, finally, there _are_ no people like me. There are people; and there's me. Nothing in between. There are others who are just as twisted, but none in quite the same way as me."

He ended his rant, sighed with vexation, belying the vicious grin that had been on his face mere moments ago. "Now, are we going to go off on your little kamikaze run so that I can kill some of the people I'm supposed to kill, or am I going to have to relieve my homicidal tendencies here and now?"

He turned and led the way after the humans that he was supposed to save, not looking to see whether they were following; their consciences compelled them to the foolishness ahead, but at least he knew now that someone _useful_ would be providing assistance in the form of Lawson; in many ways superior company, a foil for his intellect and his abilities. The fact that she was delectable 'eye-candy' had almost nothing to do with it...

Shepard set a punishing pace in order to catch up with the slaver party, expecting his guards to keep up but uncaring as to whether they did; the most use they would be was to draw enemy fire and do the talking when it came to the civilians... neither he nor Lawson were exactly 'personable'. Although he felt sure that she could give him a run for his money in the intimidation department...

Realising that he had to be drawing near to the rearguard, Shepard began to exercise further caution in his pursuit, and was justified when he finally caught sight of a batarian peering intently down the scope of a sniper rifle before hurriedly retreating after his comrades.

_Now we have the problem of how to get past them without giving ourselves away..._

He waited for his class B allies to get back into eyeshot, then beckoned them urgently, managing to urge some more speed out of them, before he moved off again.

What he saw once he regained sight of the enemy made the issue of how to get past the rearguard somewhat redundant.

The batarians had reached their ships.

Loading of their dispirited cargo had already commenced, something that caused Shepard to swear viciously to himself; Lawson wanted these people freed, which was in his interests, and wanted him to work with the grunts to achieve it, but they wouldn't deal well with the introduction of a time limit; they'd insist on going in without adequate preparation.

A strategy was required that would maximise their (well mostly his) chances of survival and success, playing to everyone's strengths. Miranda was limited to providing sniper support unless things got really unpleasant; having an unknown sniper coming to their aid would be difficult to explain, which left Shepard acting as a sniper himself.

The two marines weren't particularly useful in combat, but they'd be good enough to provide covering fire for the civilians, and would probably be only too happy to participate in some fruitless suicidal gesture to save them, regardless of the value of the exchange, so they'd have to be the ones doing the actual rescuing.

The final question was perhaps the most awkward to answer reliably; how to get them close enough to get the civilians out without being shredded first?

_Easy. I get all of them to shoot at _me_... Miranda's _definitely_ going to have to owe me a favour for this..._

His guards caught up with him, panting heavily, and saw the civilians being loaded onto ships. He stood facing them nonchalantly, ELE resting on his left shoulder, gripped loosely.

"We have a time limit, now, so I'm going to have to do something I really despise in order to get this done. I'm going to act as a diversion. Bit of sniping to distract them, some of them will go looking for me, and in the meantime you can do your best to be stealthy and get in close, jump the ones that are monitoring the boarding process, and run off with their valuable cargo, at which point they can go back to being happily valueless civilians. Now, there is a high likelihood that some or all of us are going to get killed doing this, and my role is more dangerous than yours so I am qualified to tell you that there will be _no_ touching farewells as I need my bowels functioning properly and the two of you turn my stomach quite enough as it is. Move."

Anyone else, and the two marines might have tried to object, or believed that they were hiding their feelings behind a gruff exterior. They moved off, and Shepard moved into a nearby building to begin the work that he was best at, his blessing and his curse; killing people well, and getting noticed for it.

The first shots were an attempt to delay the boarding process, by sabotaging the shuttles; three rapid shots to an engine, rendering it useless. Shepard was enjoying having this level of firepower. The batarians responded quickly, dividing into two groups of hunters and guards, the remaining guards deploying into a more efficient defensive formation for their numbers, whilst the hunters fanned out into cover from the direction from which the rounds had come and attempted to get sight of the sniper.

A quick flurry of shots dropped one of the guards, whilst Shepard was still moving clockwise around the enemy positions, from the same direction as where he had been previously, but significantly farther back. The shots had been from a smaller calibre anti-personnel rifle, and the batarians knew it, and sent out some of their men to deal with the second sniper. Fortunately for Shepard, his two captors, despite having seen these events from their own positions, knew almost nothing about his specialisation, finding it unseemly to say the least, and assumed that those shots were his work, as well.

Shepard found his new position, and picked off a trio of the hunters moving to deal with Miranda, however, the muzzle flashes had been spotted, and he came under fire from a group of hunters that had been assigned to deal with him. He cursed, and dropped back into cover before any of the haphazard rounds managed to hit him.

The batarians endeavoured to keep him pinned down whilst their commander dispatched another squad to flank him and finish the sniper off. When they arrived, however, they found nothing more than a small cache of explosives that promptly detonated when investigated, taking two of the team of three down permanently and giving the last severe burns.

Shepard had managed to avoid detection, moving into cover, always staying out of the enemy's line of sight as he had retreated, until he was in another position further back, but with the cache still in eyeshot.

He moved again, further in the direction of his original flanking manoeuvre, and picked off a pair of guards with snapshots from two slightly different locations, before strafing around the enemy in the opposite direction, moving back towards his previous locations.

Sure enough, the enemy focus was further in the previous direction that he had been moving, and they were taken by surprise when he picked off one of the squad leaders. Realising that they were not going to be afforded a pattern that they could follow and predict, the hunters simply fanned out into the buildings in five teams of three, whilst another five moved off to attempt to catch the second sniper. This left ten guarding the ships and their cargo spread about the fairly open plaza; as good an opportunity as his 'captors' were likely to get.

Mentally, Shepard urged them to get on with it so that he could end his game of hide and seek, before picking off another two in an attempt to get the message across and make the situation still more enticing for the two Military Police.

Then, he moved again, further anticlockwise back towards the squad intended to deal with Miranda, hoping to be able to catch them from behind.

What he hadn't hoped for was practically walking right into one of the squads of three that were prowling the rubble-strewn streets. He saw them about half a second before they saw him, managed to pick one of them off with a hip shot from his sniper that he refused to admit was more a fluke than a demonstration of skill, before diving into cover away from the vengeful returning fire from the rifle and shotgun of the newly deceased's two comrades.

He rolled to his feet behind the wall of a bombed-out house, his back protesting at the new bruises resulting from heavy impacts with multiple good-sized fragments of concrete (not _quite _what was used anymore but it was known colloquially as 'concrete' for convenience's sake), carefully laid ELE aside before drawing his heavy pistol in his right hand and a knife in his left, using the grip once used by the old US naval special forces, the SEALs.

Quickly, he reconstructed in his mind what he had seen in those hectic fragments of a second to visualise his enemies' positions and their likely routes, before leaning out of cover just enough to be able to see and shoot without obstruction, immediately firing several rapid shots to bring down the shields of a running, shotgun-wielding batarian before a shot to the cranium laid him low.

Confident in his guess about his other foe's position, Shepard didn't wait, but sprinted out of cover to find himself running less than a metre in front of a pursuing line of bullets arcing around after him from the assault rifle of the remaining alien. Knowing he had about a second, he dropped off of his feet to continue to skid on the rough ground, then snapping a pair of shots off at the batarian to force him to duck into cover for a second so that Shepard had the requisite moment to scramble to his feet and crouch behind a low pile of debris in the street.

_No time for this; the gunfire will draw others like vultures to a corpse halfway through decomposition._ He leaned out to the right from his rather paltry cover to fire a prolonged burst with his pistol in order to ensure the alien remained pinned down, then quickly switched out to the left-

And flung the throwing knife so that it curved through the air past the batarians cover. A second later, the batarian fell out into the open, a neat little gash spilling blood from his throat. Shepard looked at his hand and saw a slight blue aura fading, and once again wished for a more conventional option for his biotics.

Batarian voices sent him moving quickly to retrieve ELE before he made himself scarce, slipping out through a gap in the enemy's closing search pattern. He heard automatic gunfire coming from over by the ships.

_At least I managed to retrieve my goal to get some attention..._ He allowed himself a quiet chuckle-

Before being thrown violently through the air by a sudden explosion.

_Bastards... fucking plagiarism..._ He thought somewhat abstractly as he lost his hold on consciousness...


	10. The Better Part of Valour

The Better Part of Valour

The two marines had been crouching in the shadows in another debris strewn, wrecked building, around to the left of Shepard's original position, fiddling tensely with their weapons whilst they waited for the gunfire to begin, so that they could make their move and rescue the civilians from their ignominious fate.

Mark sighed, and looked up at his partner, and lover. He shied away from the term 'girlfriend', it seemed childish and trivial, whilst their relationship, to him at least, was anything but. She, however, had been... distant, of late, particularly since they had been assigned to Shepard's guard. He felt that it was somewhat to be expected given the nature of her admittedly indirect history with the man, but what had _hurt_ was the fact that _he_ had found out about this history at the same time as Shepard himself.

He preferred to be honest with himself, and realised that her anger had become a vendetta, and that vendetta had become an obsession which had a weird level of fascination to it. It had taken precedence over their relationship.

He allowed himself a wry grimace, realising that Shepard would probably realise before long, likely only hadn't already as his focus was on survival, and that he would be positively delighted, and not just because of all of the quips he would be able to make about 'trouble in paradise', which was irritatingly appropriate on many levels. `_They just _had_ to tempt fate and call this shithole Elysium..._

She was aware of his eyes upon her, but evaded his stare. He wanted to talk to her about it, but knew that she would only become angry and defensive and that what could well be their last moments alone together would then be spent in hostility. He couldn't bear that possibility, and so elected to be discreet.

The silence continued.

Three deep, powerful shots against what sounded like metal. A cacophony of alarm calls and surprised shouts. Mark hazarded a look, and saw the batarians scrambling into new positions, splitting up to look for the sniper. He heard slight movement over his shoulder; Cameron was watching the chaos unfold too, but distantly, lost in thought at the same time.

Another few sniper rounds brought down one of the guards, and more were reassigned to hunting for the killer that was interfering with their business. The sniping continued, and the frustration of the batarians became palpable when the hunters simply spread out into the ruins on the one side that the rounds had been coming from. Ten guards remained, but they would still be outnumbered five to one.

Two quick shots reduced the strength of the guards to eight, and no more shots were forthcoming. Their situation was unlikely to get any better, particularly not when automatic gunfire rang out on Shepard's side of the battlefield, responded to by single shots from what sounded like a sniper rifle and a pistol. Mark rose up, his movement enticing Cameron's attention back to their own situation, mirroring his action of removing the safety from his weapon, before creeping out into the ruins to try and get close enough to help the 'valueless' people that were the only reason for a good soldier's actions, regardless of what Shepard said.

Mark was spotted first, having the worst luck and grasp of stealth, dropping when a batarian glanced in his direction, the movement attracting the enemy's attention more surely than the shape that he would have seen. Gunfire rang out, Cameron hesitated before opening up with her pistol in an attempt to aid her partner.

Shields weakened, the batarian ducked away from the rounds, allowing Mark to get up and raise his assault rifle, before beginning his run through the rubble towards the ships, bullets and ricocheting shrapnel flying around him, lowering the strength of his kinetic barriers. He didn't fire back, couldn't afford to concentrate on anything over than running over the treacherous ground, not gifted with the feline grace that marked Shepard's navigation through a battlefield.

Somehow, the bastard always seemed to move in the exact right way, do the exact right thing. But Mark was only human, so he ran. His armour droned a warning; his barriers had been weakened to the point at which they might as well not be there, and he didn't know what to do. He tripped, got lucky as rounds seared through the space that his head had been occupying, grabbed his rifle and crawled into cover before looking for Cameron.

She was trading shots with a batarian that had been attempting to close in on him from behind, whilst making more gradual but consistent progress towards the ship, always utilising cover and avoiding direct line of sight with the enemy.

Mark added his bullets to hers, firing in short bursts in an attempt to improve his accuracy. Caught under fire from two flanks, the batarian's shields failed, and he was picked off by a shot from Cameron that found its way through a chink in the criminal's armour.

What Mark saw then was disturbing. She smirked in triumph. The expression could almost have come directly off of the face of their local psychopath.

An explosion rang out from Shepard's flank, and the sniper fire stopped. Suddenly, regardless of his current value in keeping them alive, Mark really hoped that the Butcher of Torfan was dead.

The humans were jerked from their reverie by more gunfire, having been flanked by a group of three batarians whilst the remaining four had taken positions directly blocking the advance of the marines on the shuttles.

Mark scrabbled around in the dust that made another choking layer of atmosphere a metre off of the ground, and managed to get into a piece of cover that shielded him from both sources of projectiles, telling himself he was waiting for his shields to recharge.

Cameron returned fire and continued her advance, wearing down the shields of one of her attackers systematically, before managing to achieve a headshot, bringing the attention of the other aliens down on her with a vengeance, which pulled Mark out of cover on their flank to spray dozens of rounds at them, oblivious to anything else, including the rounds that were thudding into his back, accompanying the batarians in front of him in reducing his shield strength.

Given the opportunity to pick off fifty percent of their opposition in one easy stroke, the batarians forgot about the other half, understandably. Cameron ran at the two batarians cut off from their comrades, arcing her advance so that she was approaching them from behind, before shooting one of them in the back of the head at point blank range, past his kinetic barriers, execution style. The other whirled around in shock, raising his rifle, at which point two things happened-

Mark's rounds finally managed to punch through the kinetic barriers and a stray projectile carved a path through the alien's skull.

Also, his own shields failed completely and he was thrown to the floor as a result of the numerous bullets impacting directly against his armour, the ground around him slowly being stained red by an expanding pool of blood.

Cameron saw it. Cameron knew she could do something about it. She also knew that what she could do was unlikely to be of much use; neither of them had been carrying medigel. He was in the right direction anyway, and so she made her way towards the form of her lover on the ground, face down and still. Dead. The bullet had carved a path into his back that had come into contact with his heart, he had spasmed as his body shut down, resulting in the miraculous kill shot, and then he had fallen.

Cameron had never had anyone she had been close to die before her cousin. One of the reasons she had become so obsessed with it and the person who had done it was that she was _sure_ that she was supposed to feel something more as a result of it. This was what she encountered again, now. Her partner was dead. Her lover was dead. She still had a task to accomplish.

She took Mark's assault rifle, still hot from his long stream of bullets in an attempt to aid her, and, staying down and avoiding her foes' line of sight, scrambled off through the rubble, coming up twenty metres away and firing a prolonged burst at her foes, managing to kill in that one burst with a high number of impacts to the enemy's head.

Ducking away from the bullets that screamed around her in response, she moved again, as the remaining three batarians realised that their best bet was to pursue her into a corner and then pick her off at their leisure.

However, they had a certain amount of trouble actually _finding_ the Californian, who had managed to get around their advance and move up to the ships behind them, with the civilian prisoners and the large numbers of weapons lying alongside the corpses of their owners.

Cameron felt it would be nice to have the numerical advantage for a change...


	11. Radicalisation

Radicalisation

Miranda had been frustrated by the sounds of close quarters combat emanating from Shepard's area of the battlefield; it meant that she could no longer render assistance with her own rifle, or even interfere with the advance of the group of hunters assigned to eliminate _her_. Instead, she was forced to restrict herself to her biotics and close quarters combat in an endeavour to avoid giving away her presence to Shepard's Alliance guards.

The result was an infuriating game of cat and mouse amidst the ruins of razed buildings, a game that Miranda was hard pressed to retain the advantage in. What had been _more_ perturbing than _this_, however, was the explosion and sudden abatement of gunfire from Shepard's area; not limited to an end of automatic or single fire weaponry, either of which would indicate that Shepard was still operational, but _all_ gunfire.

_There were simply too many batarians for Shepard to have just finished them off._

_He might be able to take care of himself, but no-one is immune to mistakes or misfortune; I need to safeguard the objective_. Miranda made her decision, ducking out of cover to hurl a batarian back into a pile of rubble through careful manipulation of gravity. He made impact with the concrete with a sickening _crunch_, his armour misshapen, caved in at the back. Judging by the way he slumped to the floor, apparently catatonic due to shock, she had broken his spine.

She didn't stop, however, sending out a pulse from her Omni-tool to cause the alien's comrade's weapon to malfunction and his kinetic barrier to overload, preventing him from firing and giving them away as well as providing her with time to close in, staggering him with a smooth spinning kick to the head before continuing the motion to deliver a precise biotic pulse to the alien's chest, disrupting the rhythm of the batarian's heart and sending him into cardiac arrest. He collapsed, groaning and fighting to retain consciousness.

Miranda didn't give him a second glance, but simply moved off through the ruins towards the source of the explosion that, she deduced, had put an end to Shepard's one-man insurgency.

* * *

Thaddaeus Shepard awoke in pain. Rather a lot of it, actually. However, what surprised him was the _nature_ of the pain he was in. From a rapid (and not entirely reliable as a result) self-diagnosis, he summarised that he had suffered no burns as a result of the explosion that was the last thing he could remember, and had suffered no actual open wounds; instead having suffered a significant battering as a result of the powerful concussive wave that the explosion had given off, and numerous scrapes, grazes and bruises from his landing on jagged concrete debris.

Oh, and his head was _slaughtering _him. Slowly.

_I'd think I was suffering from an aneurism, except for the fact that I wouldn't be feeling it; I'd be dead. Besides, unless it affected the areas of the brain associated with pain, it wouldn't cause anything like this. So; concussion, perhaps a shattered skull-_

Then, he recalled that he wasn't in an environment that could reasonably be called 'safe'. He analysed the information his senses were providing him, careful not to provide any indication that he was conscious until he had ascertained whether he had company or not.

He smelt blood and smoke, and the air had a strange sting from the explosion, which he presumed was recent. He heard gunfire, and nearby voices. Batarian voices. Judging by the fluctuation in volume, voices belonging to people that were moving around, and judging by their comparatively hushed nature, voices belonging to people hoping to avoid detection, meaning that they were probably searching for him.

Their hushed voices meant one other thing.

They were _very_ close by.

He had what data he could gain without displaying consciousness; it seemed likely from the data that he had that it was safe to open his eyes. He did so, and immediately reemphasised that it had been _likely_, not _certain_.

There was a batarian standing over him, carrying a gun that seemed to be pointed between his eyes, who was glaring at the now quietly groaning human with a look of utter _hatred_.

"Corporal Shepard." It greeted him quietly, it's deep voice a snarl.

"Oh, no, that bastard ran off a couple of hours ago." The human responded glibly. "If you like, I could take a message?"

"You don't think I'd recognise the Butcher of Torfan on sight?"

"And there's that nickname again. I kill people with _precision_, damnit; it's an important distinction. So, I assume by the fact that I'm not dead yet that you wish to rail against me for my _vile_ crimes against your species, studiously ignoring the fact that your precious Hegemony brought that raid down on themselves? You may as well shoot me now; it'd be kinder, so you'd actually _have_ the moral high ground your species seems to believe they occupy, and, given the fact that your earlier attempt to kill me failed, I'm in a certain amount of pain that has triggered such resentment that the low probability that you might have been able to torture me into showing some form of remorse has been rendered zero."

"We-the Hegemony isn't trying to kill you."

"Oh. Thanks for telling me, I must have misunderstood the bullets and explosions. That's a cultural thing I suppose? I suppose I should tell you that in _my_ culture, pointing a gun at someone _tends_ to make them uneasy and in my own personal case sometimes rather stubborn." Shepard said, unusually testy and flippant due to the _crippling_ pseudo-migraine in his head.

"The Hegemony wants you alive. For now. I disagree."

"Oh. Why?" Shepard asked curiously. The batarian Hegemony was hardly known for its forgiving nature. "Not you, your government." He interrupted to clarify as the batarian opened his mouth to explain. "I know why _you_ want me dead; Butcher of Torfan, etc etc..."

"They want what's in your head. Details of the Leviathan research project. And, of course, to... _chastise_ you properly, affording the process the proper amount of time and attention. Any attempts to kill you have either been rogue operatives, fools who failed to recognise you, or misunderstood on your part."

"They expect _me_ to remember specific details of _their_ project that _they_ were running on Torfan?"

"Yes."

"That's completely fucking absurd. Given the leisure to do so, I might have read through the details of the project, however, I didn't have _time_, as your own people had rigged the bunker network to explode, which, incidentally, is also what destroyed the data."

"You didn't take it with you?" the batarian asked curiously, despite himself, surprised that someone with the vicious reputation of the Butcher of Torfan had failed to bring back such an important item, particularly when it would have been so easy to retrieve.

"I carried my CO out on my shoulders instead." Shepard admitted with a scowl. Seeing the alien's eyes widen, he hastily went on to explain "I was suffering from severe blood loss, not fully conscious, and the man I had with me that was carrying the data got shot by one of your comrades. I forgot about the bloody data and carried a useless gibbering loon out instead."

The batarian was practically speechless.

"See, I'm never going to be able to live this down." Shepard complained testily. "The fucking Alliance wants me dead for doing what I had to in order to stay alive and get the job done, and I managed a pointlessly compassionate act _by accident_, to the detriment of the mission and myself, and they want me dead for being a murderous psychopath! The fact that that's almost entirely accurate is irrelevant!"

The batarian thought for a moment, trying to get his head around these revelations.

"Well, now that you've told me that you don't have the data, I suppose I may as well kill you..."

_Bugger. Need a solution, quickly please..._ Shepard urged himself, his migraine getting worse, something he might have previously doubted as even being _possible_, as he raised his hands to massage his temples to try and give himself some relief-

He froze halfway through the action, staring at his exposed wrists.

They were surrounded by a blue aura; slight, but actually _more_ visible than it was usually, when he was using his biotics passively.

That raised an interesting idea, and a far _more_ interesting possible solution to his current predicament.

Remembering his scanty knowledge of conventional biotics and improvising, through the pain, and the gunfire, and the choking dust, Shepard tried to focus his entire mind, unify conscious mental function onto one idea, onto one section of his anatomy; the right hand that was currently massaging his temple.

It was _bloody_ difficult, even without the external distractions; Shepard's brain had a habit of randomly flitting from concept to concept almost spontaneously, with only a relatively small part that he could focus on any one thing, and trying to push past that was actually _intensifying _the pain in his head, as if his body were attempting to discourage him, something his subconscious seemed to agree with as it tried to rip his thoughts to shreds.

He railed against the obstacles, but pushed on regardless, the glow fading on his left wrist and intensifying on his right, to such an extent that the batarian, having paused, curious at the human's strange pain noticed it himself, despite having never encountered such a phenomenon before.

"What are you doing-" It began suspiciously, as Shepard's closed eyes shot open, and his right hand almost _spasmed_ out, the muscles in the forearm having tensed the digits into claws, and blue energy transferred from the limb to the batarian's head.

The change was insignificant at first; Shepard feared he'd failed, wasn't even sure what was _supposed_ to happen; he'd acted with no clear goal in mind other than survival, until the batarian's nose began to leak the odd dirty yellow blood that belonged to the batarian species.

He knew batarian anatomy; the nose was not an orifice that was prone to bleeding.

The batarian knew as well; he rubbed at the substance that was flowing ever more copiously from his nose, asked "What did you do?" Shepard merely grinned in response, as he saw blood drip from his foe's tear ducts, then his ears and from his mouth, before it seemed that he was bleeding under his very _skin_. Hysterically, somehow not even having the sense to seal Shepard's fate with a scream, the batarian clutched at his head, attempting to staunch the bleeding, and failing woefully.

Shepard watched as the batarian thrashed around, fell to the floor, and his death throes ended.

There was a metallic tang in his mouth, and moisture on his face. He swallowed and felt the viscous texture of blood flow down his throat, sickening and strengthening, wiped at the moisture on his face, flowing from his own tear ducts and nose; his hand came away red.

"Shit." He mumbled to himself, light headed and drained, fighting for consciousness as he slumped back against the rubble he had been tossed into by the explosion.

Around him, the gunfire intensified, the batarians encountering more opposition than there really should be in the area. Shepard tried to consider explanations, but his brain was refusing to function as it normally did. He saw Miranda in the distance, watching him, clearly stunned by what she'd seen and considering its implications. She shrugged, and began to walk towards him, before she saw something over his shoulder that made her melt back into shadow.

Cameron walked into his line of sight. Alone, and armed, and bloody, and with dilated pupils, eyes that gleamed with a feral energy that Shepard was on familiar terms with.

_Oh, just bloody wonderful..._

She offered him her hand. He blinked.

"We don't have time for this; Command has a new directive for us."

_I didn't know that hallucinations were a side effect of biotics..._


	12. Tactical Withdrawal

Author note: My sincerest apologies for the delay; my muse was suffering from a terminal condition, but is now back from the dead. My thanks to Armandhas for serving as beta for this chapter due to my perfectionism, and telling me what I needed to hear.

* * *

Tactical Withdrawal

No arguments; he was alive and now that he was operating on the assumption that he was in a position to keep it that way, it was time to be pragmatic again. Whilst the possibility of hallucinations was certainly present considering what Shepard had put his brain through, and Cameron _should_ have killed him instead of opting to keep him alive, if he operated on the assumption that something wasn't real and it _was_, it could have repercussions.

_Of course, if we prioritise a larger threat that happens to be a delusion, this could result in failing to deal with a more 'insignificant' threat that's actually real and capable of doing us harm. Don't over think it, concentrate on survival. You're practically delirious. You need medical attention. I know, however, I'm hardly culpable for Miranda's tardiness or Cameron's arrival which drove her off. No point to complaining; it is what it is and dwelling on it won't save you. Get up._

Shepard took the hand proffered by the Californian woman, pulled himself upright with not an insignificant level of help, and found it difficult even simply to stand. His body was drained of energy; the only saving grace was that the pain residing within his skull was fading, which made unhindered rational thought once again a reasonable possibility.

"Mark not going to grace us with his presence?" He asked, somewhat warily, already suspecting the answer, but realising that he had to know for certain. _Information is power; power provides the capacity to protect oneself._

"Killed liberating those 'useless' civilians." She said, not entirely without emotion. There was anger, and some regret, but no grief. No tears, either, Shepard realised. Her lover was dead, and she was angry as a result, but the regret was almost certainly due to the fact that it hadn't had the impact that it ought to.

"And where might they be?"

"Holding the open ground." She gestured in that direction, expecting him to lead the way. Shepard wasn't quite sure how to phrase his objection in a way that wouldn't get him killed; he was in no condition to be engaging in close quarters combat, and he was only armed with knives and his pistol. A situation that had to be rectified.

He scanned the ground, began a quick search, Cameron not asking what he was looking for, merely dividing her attention between him and the surrounding area, guarding against any threats that might appear.

He found ELE, battered but not broken, flung further by the explosion than he had been, perhaps having been knocked from his grasp upon his own impact with the ground. Having retrieved the weapon, he gestured to Cameron to lead the way, natural enough since he could have been disorientated by the blast, and besides, she was closer. The reality was he didn't want her where he couldn't see her.

"What are your orders?"

She glanced back over her shoulder at him. "You mean our orders."

"No, I mean _your_ orders. I'm no longer on active duty, I'm pending a court martial. I'm just here in order to live for that bit longer."

There was no point arguing. "The Alliance has the batarian flotilla on the back foot, and is now capable of putting troops on the ground. They've broadcast orders to all personnel and civilians to make their way to the landing zone for evac whilst they deploy fresh troops to deal with the remaining pirates and slavers. That's where we're going, and we're going to keep the civilians alive on the way there."

"Us and every batarian that hears that broadcast. I take it the Alliance has cut off the lines of retreat for the people the flotilla has on the ground?" Cameron nodded. "Their only way off planet is now to take the ships that will be at the landing zone. We're all going to be going to the same place; there's no better way to introduce chaos."

As he finished, they arrived at the open ground, where there were twenty odd surviving civilians, ten of whom were armed, the others resting in the centre, clearly either unwilling or incapable of combat. Some of them weren't even fully grown. The group was mixed-species, mostly human, but among those not fighting were a Salarian and an asari, and with the armed group was a Turian.

"You got a better idea?" Cameron asked.

"Are the ships still functional?"

"The remaining batarians sabotaged them before they retreated. There's about ten of them still out there somewhere."

Ten. A sizable ambush force that could potentially cut them off from extraction.

"Better get on with it, then." He said, motioning to her to rouse their group so that they could move.

"I don't think it's me they've got a problem with. Besides, you're senior." She pointed out. They _were_ looking at Shepard somewhat apprehensively, he saw, and reflected that he must look somewhat worse for wear. Terrifying, however, would have been a better word. He was clad entirely in black and wearing a trenchcoat, cradling a sniper rifle, and his face was covered liberally in his own blood, the whites of his eyes stained almost completely red. Had his mouth been open, his teeth would have been tainted with the same colour.

"I don't do inspirational speeches." He warned her, before stepping forwards to get their attention.

"Ahem. Greetings. I'm Thaddaeus Shepard, although you're more likely to know me by the somewhat inaccurate title 'The Butcher of Torfan'. I am a narcissistic, psychopathic assassin and the only reason I'm here is that I'm more likely to get killed elsewhere. As long as you're capable of giving me aid in return, however, I will endeavour to keep you all alive; in this case, everyone who walks away from this is expected to deliver a testimony in my defence at my court martial if I don't manage to get out of it. This is the deal, and if you renege, there will be severe consequences. We're going to be making for the evac zone now, and there will be a great many batarians dogging our steps on the way. So, stealth will be our best ally. Don't shoot unless I tell you to; and I don't mean unless you're about to die, because if you open fire without my permission, I am going to shoot you myself. Assuming you survive. Now, I'll be bringing up the rear, as that's where most of the batarians will be coming from, besides which, my, ah, captor there, wouldn't let me have an Omni tool, so I don't actually know the coordinates of our destination. Last instruction; as far as I am concerned, my survival comes paramount. Don't get in my way."

The civilians weren't too reassured by any of this, but they got up and got into groups, the non combatants at the centre, the others surrounding them in five groups of two. Cameron took point.

"You know, if you just gave me an Omni tool, I could do this instead." Shepard offered. She declined. He moved to act as the rearguard, swearing at her internally. He would certainly have preferred to be the vanguard, in control of the group to being at the back, admittedly safe from active betrayal as it would be easy to watch all of them, however, as the rearguard there was a danger of being abandoned to the enemy. Besides which, whilst Cameron suddenly seemed rather more competent, he trusted his own abilities of escaping notice rather more than hers, which he had never even seen any evidence of.

He would have ditched the lot of them in favour of Miranda, who doubtless had an alternative route off world, but she wanted him to keep the civilians alive almost as much as Cameron did. _Women... they're chemically programmed to be compassionate, which helps to preserve the species but is of little use in war... good thing they're not particularly representative of their gender..._

He let the group move off about twenty metres in front of him whilst he tried to find a sign of the elusive surviving batarians. They were watching, he knew, as he turned to follow, having finished his meticulous scan. They were biding their time-

BLAM! A high velocity sniper round hissed through the air past his cheek, sending powerful ripples through the air before it smashed a chunk out of a shard of concrete resting on the ground. Sniper rounds of that calibre didn't need to hit anywhere vital to kill; they carried sufficient energy that the mere shock of contact with the projectile would stop your heart and in all probability pulp your brain, along with certain other key organs. The one benefit of being on the receiving end of such a death was that it was quick.

Shepard was already diving away when the second bullet came, the sniper coming dangerously close to scoring a hit as Shepard moved through the air, regretting his action as he relinquished control to gravity for a second before he hit the ground and rolled to his feet at a tangent before sprinting after the group that he was supposed to be protecting, managing to school his movements into a truly random and therefore unpredictable pattern which provided a measure of safety from the predations of his colleague and rival.

Clearly, the batarians _had _been biding their time, but not to find the perfect moment to attack the group as a whole. Their intention was apparently to pick him off before turning their attention to the rest of the group, perhaps to attempt to recoup their losses, or as a bargaining chip to secure passage off world. The Alliance was notoriously soft-hearted when it came to hostage situations.

What was certain, however, was that they were no longer interested in taking Shepard alive for the Hegemony. One didn't rely on a target's luck and skill to keep them alive when one was shooting at them with that kind of weapon; there was too great a risk of an accident that would be irretrievable.

Gunfire; and not from the main group. Miranda had decided that the situation was dangerous enough to interfere directly. Shepard finally managed to reach acceptable cover, and allowed himself a few seconds to ascertain the batarian's positions. He located them, although he couldn't see them distinctly; they were dealing with a threat rather closer to home; yellow muzzle flashes combating blue flares, and a lithe figure twisting her way through their ranks, gracefully bringing them down one after the other. Shepard watched her through ELE's scope, having difficulty actually seeing her some of the time, but deducing her actions, and picking off the enemy sniper for her as a little act of personal vengeance.

He might have interfered further, but there was a risk he'd end up shooting her instead of a foe; besides which, he was enjoying the spectacle. However, others might decide to take an interest, too, if they caught a glimpse. They didn't need to know about his guardian, and Cameron _definitely_ didn't need to know that Cerberus was intending to liberate him from the Alliance's grasp-something of the sort might make her decide to take steps. So, he rose up, and motioned to the Californian to keep going, before he fired off a round from the rifle in the general direction of the conflict in order to add realism to the pretence, before running in to close with the enemy; and out of her line of sight.

Shepard made his way over towards Miranda, firing two more rounds from ELE before drawing his pistol and firing at random intervals, before, as he reached her and she slammed a batarian into the ground, rendering the alien unconscious to be finished with a round to the face, he ceased fire altogether.

"Quite a spectacle." He commented as she turned to face him. He inclined his head respectfully, and in gratitude. "That could have been an awkward situation to deal with. Probably would have become a running battle that would draw in other privateers like flies. Thank you."

"You needed help. I was in a position to render assistance." She dismissed his praise and gratitude neutrally, before turning to a topic that was of more interest to her. "You look like hell. You just suffered a mild version of what you did to that batarian; you're lucky you even survived the attempt."

"Yeah, I'm not eager to be attempting that again without a medical team nearby. Perhaps we can look into it once you get me out of here. We could probably go now, if you'd prefer..."

"No. Those civilians won't survive without your assistance; this colony could be crippled without our interference."

"Then it deserves to be. Besides, it's not like there's a shortage of humans out there."

"These people are here because of me. If we let them die, I'm directly responsible. I won't jeopardise the mission for their sake beyond reasonable levels, however, if I let them die I'm little better than the Hegemony."

"Battlefield ethics. I'd almost think it admirable..."

"But you don't care about anyone but yourself."

"True. At least you know that the little people sometimes need to be offered up as a sacrifice for the preservation of the bigger picture. That's more than can be said of most of the Alliance, and the others are desperate for acceptance by the Council. Important to the species, certainly, but-"

Shepard's little meandering was cut off by a sound not too far distant, coming from the general direction of Cameron and her charges. Gunfire.

"It seems that our little skirmish has drawn in some scavengers in any case..." He commented as he holstered his pistol, before moving with evident reluctance back in the direction of the gunfire.

Miranda watched him leave for a brief moment before moving off on a tangent in order to watch the upcoming exchange and the surrounding area.


	13. Altruistic Egoism

Author note: again, sorry for the delay, recently it's been difficult to maintain the daily updates. I feel, however, that I am back on form.

* * *

Altruistic Egoism

Despite the weariness that permeated his body, Shepard moved quickly and silently towards the gunfire, seeking a convenient vantage point over the battlefield from which to snipe, yet never putting a foot wrong on the treacherous ground.

He found what he was looking for; a ruined building whose walls were still structurally sound according to his assessment, as well as accessible via the two metre high mounds of debris resting against them. He ascended carefully; the wall was sound, but the only way to know how stable the rubble was, was to disturb it until it slid, which would be somewhat inconvenient and give away his position prematurely to any enemy careful enough to pay attention to their surroundings.

Slowly, he appeared over the top of the wall, resting ELE in a niche before surveying the situation through her scope. Cameron's group was being assaulted and pursued in a running battle with two squads of batarians that totalled twenty soldiers. Contrary to his instructions, the armed civilians were firing back, although he'd have considered them fools if they didn't while he wasn't present.

Three were already dead of the armed group and despite the fact that the non-combatants had taken no casualties; they were caught in the open, and more than sufficiently exposed for the situation to change at a moment's notice. They were close to being broken, Thaddaeus could see; the one reason they hadn't already was that two of their group were at least giving a reasonable account of themselves, as opposed to simply frantically spraying bullets in the general direction of the enemy and hoping that they found their mark.

Unsurprisingly, these two were Cameron and the turian, who were both firing back with short, lethally accurate bursts that as he watched brought down the shields of a melee specialist that had been hoping to get in amongst the civilians, before he was laid low with the only thing to indicate his species being the colour of the blood on his destroyed face.

The turian was shouting to his comrades to follow his example, when, tempting fate and having no shields, he was brought down by an unfortunate flurry of rounds from an assault rifle, blue blood flying from a ruptured artery in his chest, a wound that everyone concerned could see was lethal. The turian knew it too, and, with the typical stoic resolve and unflinching courage (or stupidity in Shepard's view) that one associated with their species, he changed the direction he was moving in, advancing on the batarians, firing an unending wave of bullets that forced them down and into cover, doing little more than buying Cameron and the others time to get out of direct sight of their attackers, but this was as much of a grand farewell as the self-sacrificing alien could manage before the blood flying from his chest began to run out and he collapsed, before breathing his last.

Predictably, the group's morale took a severe hit, and they were on the point of fleeing in all directions like the fools that they were, before the psychopath decided that now would be a suitable moment to interfere and maximise the gratitude that he would receive for saving their collective skin.

A quick round to the head picked off one of the leaders as he ducked out of cover, finally certain that the turian was dead and ready to continue the pursuit. The others ducked back into cover, believing that the turian had simply changed weapons and must not have been fatally wounded as they had suspected.

The problem with their assumption was that Shepard could still see them in cover from his position. A tentative peek out from cover afforded him the opportunity to pick another foe off, before he knew that the only way they would be able to summon up the courage to look out would be for most of them to go all at once. Shepard left it for another few seconds, buying Cameron another precious few metres, before he fired rapidly into the closely huddled batarians crouching behind low walls and piles of rubble, killing four, at which point they realised their error and the need to move in order to survive.

Those who remained charged out after their quarry in the peculiar three tiered hunt, looking around wildly for the hidden predator that was steadily weakening their force, and finally, more due to luck than anything else, catching a glimpse of ELE's muzzle flash as the sniper picked off another of his foes with a clean shot exactly between the alien's four eyes.

Accordingly, they were able to find cover with which they could advance on the retreating group without fear of reprisal from Shepard, which meant that for him, it was time to move. Carefully, he eased himself back off of the roof onto the pile of rubble, before scrambling down it hastily, creating a minor slide and a dust cloud, but that had become somewhat irrelevant, given the amount of noise that had been made by both parties; speed was of the essence now that every batarian within a couple of miles would be coming for him and his charges, and stealth was relegated to a lesser concern.

He ran, carefully judging and following an efficient route by which he could get ahead of the batarians he was competing against so that he could block their way temporarily again, knowing that it was doing little more than dealing with a symptom as opposed to the underlying condition, but also realising that there was little else to do as the metaphorical cure lay at the landing zone in the form of reinforcement and evacuation.

Unfortunately, in a rare moment of oversight, he failed to take into account the possibility that the batarians might allocate half of their forces to split off from the main group in order to intercept his interception, forcing him into a corner so that the main group could flank him and finish him, which meant that he was caught off guard when the enemy opened fire from in front of him and to his right, meaning he took a second longer to react which resulted in him taking a bullet to the thigh.

Shepard grunted angrily, biting off a curse at himself in recrimination as well as at the batarians, as he staggered and stumbled, falling out of their line of fire and into cover. Looking at the wound, he found, however, that it was largely superficial in nature, having ripped straight through his leg without nicking tendon, bone or artery, and, regardless of its painful course through the muscle, failing to impede movement.

In fact, being shot only forced his body to concentrate on the sharp new pain as opposed to the all-encompassing ache of a long battle, which dulled senses, thinking and reactions. Essentially, the batarians had really done little more than provide him with a shot of natural adrenaline and a means by which to regain his focus. Shepard demonstrated his gratitude by surprising his foes with a lightening move to another, better option for cover, and in doing so ascertaining their positions.

Thus, he was able to lean out of cover ever so slightly in order to get a shot in at the batarian furthest to his left, and pick him off before he could react, bringing the number of foes dealing with him down to five. However, they would now be ready for any repeat manoeuvres, and Shepard had used up all of his explosives laying the snare for the hunters whilst creating the diversion so that his companions could free the civilians, which meant that at this point, there were no further stratagems that he could put into effect that had an acceptable probability of success.

_Although..._

Shepard carefully drew his sidearm, ensuring that he didn't expose either himself or his possessions to batarian view, which could potentially give away his next ruse. Flicking off the safety, he held it in a grip that balanced its weight in his had sufficiently well for him to use it as a melee weapon. Or, in this case, for him to throw it accurately.

He flung the pistol in a powerful over arm throw, taking care that it flew out to the batarians' left, but remained out of their line of sight. The pistol smashed into a wall with sufficient force that the trigger, having been loosened by its owner, moved enough for the gun to fire, startling and distracting the batarians away from him with the prospect of more foes, allowing Shepard to duck out of cover and pick off three of them with lightening double shots to the torso, resorting to less finesse for extra speed, before the other batarians, believing that with enemy reinforcements they were heavily disadvantaged, ducked into cover.

Despite listening carefully for enemy approach, they were caught entirely by surprise when one of them was suddenly being choked by a sniper rifle under his chin and across his throat, which was then used to _yank_ the batarian out of cover by the human standing behind the wall the batarian had been cowering behind, who then twisted the alien around so that he acted as a shield against the bullets of the final, terrified batarian who, interestingly, didn't hesitate to open fire regardless, hitting his comrade's shields with his ineffectual efforts, before said comrade opened fire in return, hoping to save his own skin, and succeeding in killing his comrade first, probably more through luck than anything else.

The human holding him released him from the choke hold, and, with a sigh of relief, the batarian turned to thank him and offer promises of reform and good behaviour, only to find a knife at his throat. The human tutted mock disappointedly, before asking, with an amused gleam in his bloodied, terrifying eyes;

"You _do_ realise that I'm the Butcher, correct?"

The batarian was halfway through a nervous nod, the sinking feeling that the alien was coming to associate with impending death returning to his abdomen, when, with one neat slash, the human severed the key blood vessels in his throat and opened up his windpipe to receive the blood.

The batarian fell away from the blade, gasping and coughing, already drowning in his own viscous juices.

Shepard went to retrieve his pistol and prepare to greet the other group of batarians.


	14. Thermopylae

Author note: sorry for another delay, this chapter simply took a while to write.

* * *

Thermopylae

The batarian group moving up to flank and eliminate Shepard hadn't been too discouraged by the cessation of gunfire; presuming that since they had received no message informing them that their prey was dead, the engagement must have concluded in a stalemate with the human pinned down and ripe for the killing upon their arrival.

This is why they were somewhat perturbed when they arrived at their destination and found no humans, living or dead.

What they found were the mutilated corpses of their fellow privateers, hanging limply (and not just by their limbs) from various walls around the area. Ordinarily, Shepard would have hung them next to each other, in deference to the traditional method of warning off pirates back on Earth in the days of the British Empire and whilst the world ran off of the wind as opposed to fossil fuels or nuclear or Mass Effect technology, or gone back in time further still and impaled their heads on spikes, but, regrettably, he simply didn't have the materials.

Instead he improvised, exploiting cracks and flaws in the damaged concrete and impaling some of the thinner areas of batarian anatomy with various knives he had found on the persons of the deceased, so that they were pinned to the walls.

In morbid fascination, two of the living batarians moved forwards to examine the corpse of the nearest of their ex-comrades, and found something rather disturbing even when taking into account the circumstances; words had been carved into his flesh.

They read; _this way towards enemy._ The batarians exchanged puzzled glances about half a second before a carefully placed charge detonated, shattering the bones in their legs with the concussive blast, and, rather more significantly, bringing the wall down on top of them, burying them up to their necks in rubble.

The other four moved forward to dig them out of the rubble, albeit cautiously, checking for signs of further snares. This slow movement, however, made them exceptionally easy targets. Four quick shots rang out, the high calibre sniper rounds smashing into their legs, brushing their kinetic barriers aside, rending armour and shredding flesh and bone alike. The four batarians joined their comrades in their agonised screaming, rapidly bleeding out as they thrashed on the ground.

Shepard didn't even bother to deign to reveal himself; the batarians were no longer a threat, and he felt that they deserved a less straightforward demise for underestimating him. Even with medigel they would remain immobile and that one of them would be able to apply it correctly to their wounds in their present condition was unlikely.

And then, of course, there was the fact that there was still _more_ gunfire in the near distance, which meant that Cameron would be requiring assistance again. He moved quickly off in the direction of the conflict.

Another running battle with fifteen batarians. More of the same civilians in a state of near total panic. The asari appeared to care about her survival enough to be applying her latent biotic potential, whilst the salarian tried to calm the other non-combatants down, understanding that simply fleeing in all directions would not ensure their survival. Cameron was having difficulty in holding them back, and the situation was more complicated than last time. Shepard could find no vantage point from which to shoot that provided a viable angle, and in any case; the batarians were too close to the allied species. Once they became aware of an enemy sniper, they would simply charge into the midst of the group, taking their chances against the sporadic returned fire of the five that were still armed, and render him useless until he could close in on them, until which time they would feel free to fire on him.

And it wasn't a good idea to destroy his prospects in an Alliance trial in case the deal with Cerberus fell through. Instead, Shepard strafed around the skirmish until he had access to the route that would allow him to get between the two parties with maximum efficiency and speed, so that he could give his charges some breathing space.

He moved, and almost immediately came under fire that was a trifle too accurate for him to be entirely confident of his decision. He managed to consistently evade the stream of bullets, but it was slowing his progress and he had no time for this-

Shepard dropped, skidded on his knees for about a metre, raising and sighting down ELE's scope even as the psychopath began the motion, the change in altitude providing him with the window and the stability required to locate and execute the batarian that was firing upon him-

Which resulted in two others turning their guns on him. Abandoning grace in order to survive, he flung himself sideways before scrabbling half to his feet and running almost doubled over in order to reduce his profile as he moved to escape their line of sight.

Their accuracy was apparently not the equal of their fallen comrade, which was why Shepard just about managed to make it to a low hill of debris, more like a large molehill that rose to less than a metre off of the ground, but just about managed to hide him from the batarian's bullets if he lay on his stomach, just below its crest.

However, the diverted attention allowed Cameron, the asari and the salarian to rally the troops, so to speak, and they managed to set up a reasonably effective fusillade that sent the batarians ducking. Shepard, however, refused to consider himself in their debt, or them out of his, on the basis that he had been in no real peril, and that if he had been, Miranda (a person to whom he wouldn't be ashamed being indebted), would have come to his aid.

In any case, he was provided with a window that he was able to use to rise out of cover and sprint for the enemy held positions, leaping over a large shard of concrete to smash the shocked batarian hiding behind it in the back of the head with ELE's stock, slamming his face into the concrete to afford him time to raise the barrel to rest under the alien's chin and pull the trigger, sending blood and brain matter and shards of skull flying, before Shepard vaulted back over the debris and ducked away from the fire that was coming his way now that his thirteen remaining foes had overcome their surprise. Five of them created suppressing fire that destroyed Cameron's attempts to coordinate a resistance with her charges, leaving her with one remaining option; close with them herself.

Relying on her shields to give her a moment's protection, she ducked out of cover and fired short, precise bursts that consistently impacted with the heads of her targets, lowering their shield strengths and decreasing the accuracy of their fire whilst they fought the compulsion to avoid the rounds that were hitting them, despite the fact that they were, in reality, doing no damage.

Understanding what she was trying to do, the asari sent a biotic wave at Cameron's targets, knocking them from their feet and affording Cameron with the time she needed to move out and advance on Shepard's attackers, at the moment at which he once again vaulted his cover, staying low, and landed on the ground at a crouch, his weapon aimed immediately at one of his foes, who was removed from the equation when a sniper round all but decapitated him, such was the level of destruction it inflicted on the alien's neck.

Shepard didn't wait to examine the creature's last moments, however, already rising to his feet and running left, towards the five that had been focussing on keeping the civilians doing what they seemed to do best; cowering. They were scrambling to their feet and reopening fire on Cameron, who had almost reached them. Unwilling to fire on Shepard and risk harming about half of their force, a batarian simply yelled a warning that transpired to be entirely counterproductive.

Instinctively, _all_ of the batarians turned to face Shepard, who was almost upon them, leaving Cameron free to fire on them as well as continuing her advance, which meant that the batarians were facing a threat on both sides and didn't have time to prioritise them, or even bring their guns around onto Shepard before-

A quick hip shot from ELE just as he reached them, hitting an enemy in the abdomen, erasing his shields and ripping through a section of the armour before flying out of the back of the alien and continuing its course to lay a heavy dent in the shield strength of the alien standing behind him before the round's motion was finally arrested. Shepard discarded the rifle, drew and slashed a batarian throat with a knife from a coat pocket, then drew his sidearm, fired three shots at extreme close range to weaken another alien's shields, simultaneously throwing the knife so that it hit immediately after the final bullet and embedded itself in the privateer's eye.

Shepard then shot the batarian that had had his shields eliminated by the round from ELE, killing him instantly, before knocking aside a hasty blow from a knife wielding batarian and spinning him into the blast of the final creature's shotgun, snapping his neck to end his struggling before opening fire-

On a corpse that fell to reveal Cameron standing behind him, wielding an assault rifle. Almost immediately, however, they came under fire from their remaining seven attackers and Shepard dived into cover on the other side of the low, ruined wall that the batarians had been using for cover whilst they assaulted the civilians, whilst Cameron, being shielded, could afford to be slightly less hasty in mirroring the motion. Shepard resolved never to go anywhere without a kinetic barrier generator ever again.

"Better late than never." Cameron commented, a level of admonition in her voice.

"Be grateful I'm here at all." Shepard retorted. "How far to the landing zone?"

"Less than a kilometre." Cameron replied. "But there's been no sign of any deploying shuttles, yet."

"So what you mean to tell me," Shepard surmised, his voice growing testy, "is that we've been summoned to a killing ground in the false hope that we'd be getting some reinforcements? Delightful. I wish this sort of thing happened to me more often, if that were even possible..."

Without waiting for a response, he leaned out of cover, receiving a barrage to the ground around him in return whilst he clipped off a couple of rounds at the batarians, before retreating to safety again.

"They know they can't shift us from over there." He thought aloud. "They're going to have to charge us. And there are seven of them and two of us, and I'm not properly equipped. This could go badly..."

He let Cameron react to this little bit of pessimism, which was of course, entirely accurate, before turning to shoot her a devil may care grin, baring his reddened teeth savagely, listening intently as the enemy advanced, hoping to take the two humans by surprise and minimise casualties. "But when can't it?" he finished a second before he vaulted the wall, firing as he went, his trenchcoat flaring out behind him as he landed in a half crouch, mere metres from his foes who continued their charge.

Behind him, Cameron stood, and opened fire with her rifle as the batarian charge carried them towards her and the psychopath, her bullets doing little to slow them, and not damaging their shields enough to bring any of them down before they reached her.

The batarians opened fire in the last couple of metres before they reached the two humans, their barrage heavy but inaccurate, a mixture of bursts from assault rifles and clusters of shotgun rounds that flew around the Californian, smashing into her shields and then her armour, bruising her and sending her backwards, her accuracy unaffected, whilst to her right, Shepard rolled under the fusillade, and lashed out at the legs of the batarian before him with his own, bringing him to the ground whilst Shepard arose, placing his pistol against the alien's forehead and pulling the trigger as he did so.

He blocked the batarian on his left from turning his shotgun on the human, and stomped on the back of the privateer's knee, forcing him down onto it before delivering another clinical execution with the pistol in his hand, before releasing the corpse to open fire on the batarian before him, then yanking on the gun in the alien's grip in order to spin in past his defences and deliver a stunning elbow to the side of his head, before twisting back around to face his opponent, seize him by the throat and place his pistol against the creature's forehead.

Using the dazed humanoid as a meat shield, Shepard closed in on the other four aliens, who were trading bullets with his female companion, before shooting his captive and letting the corpse fall and discarding his pistol as the rearmost foe turned to bring his shotgun to bear, the psychopath slapping against it, slowing its motion allowing his simultaneous jab to the batarian's forehead with his left hand to connect, before bringing his right hand up to grab the alien's neck and wrench the creature's head, snapping its spine.

Cameron brought down one of the batarians assaulting her a moment before her overtaxed assault rifle overheated, resulting in her stepping forward to lash out at one of them with her almost useless weapon, without any clear plan of action in her mind; close quarters combat was something she had never had to practise. She swung the stock of her weapon at the batarian's exposed head, the quick motion making it past his guard, and staggering her almost as much as him when it connected and sent him stumbling backwards in time for her to turn and stare down the barrel of a shotgun in the grip of her other opponent-

To have it turn away from her and finish the batarian that was trying to get back up, before Shepard wrenched it from the privateer's grasp, struck him across the face with its stock, before turning the weapon on the final foe and pulling the trigger.

He went and retrieved his weapons, then turned to her and assessed her condition; armour damaged and breached, but with no really significant wounds. Apparently, she was doing the same thing for him, with a disbelieving expression on her face. He allowed himself an arrogant smirk as he walked past her in the direction she and the civilians had been going, watching the sky. Still no shuttles.

* * *

The landing zone was filled with civilians, amateurs carrying scavenged weapons and a couple of men who had the bearing of soldiers, tasked to capacity simply keeping order whilst everyone waited apprehensively for the promised salvation to arrive or for their destruction in the form of more batarians. Many of them eyed Shepard apprehensively as he approached with his contingent of battered, bloodied and all in all rather fortunate (relatively speaking of course) survivors. He never even joined them, standing separate in the shadows of a ruined building at the edge of the open landing zone, apparently lost in thought, but carefully watching and listening for any sign of more foes, when a flash of something pale caught his eyes; Miranda's face staring at him. She beckoned.

He stood up straight and took up his sniper rifle, turned to leave when a voice behind him asked

"Where are you going?"

Cameron's voice. He sighed, mentally planned various quick and quiet methods of execution to avoid attracting attention, but decided to at least attempt to bluff instead. He turned to her.

"A force of batarians is out there. Judging by how long it's been quiet here, they're grouping together for an assault en masse, and it is my intention to keep them away from the landing zone, where they could easily prevent the shuttles from landing." A plausible scenario that reflected his likely actions in such a situation.

"Need some company?" _That was unexpected..._

"I work better alone. Look after your precious civilians; they may need it."

He stepped back in order to turn and walk away; she moved forwards, an emotion in her eyes that he had trouble identifying. She was close, now, close enough to touch and kill with ease, standing on her toes, reaching up for him-

Shepard blocked her arms, she sank back down. "What happened to hatred?"

"I judged what I didn't know or understand."

"And now you think you do? Don't try to humanise me, Cameron. Humanity is weak."

"I know. Goodbye, Shepard."

The cynical yet uncaring grin returned to Shepard's face as he watched her turn away and mirrored her action, walking off into the ruins, knowing Miranda would make contact momentarily-

Before him were perhaps as many as fifty batarians, moving through the dead city towards the pitiful defences of the evacuation point.

"Oh, bloody hell..."


	15. Hero of Elysium

Author note: yet again, I apologise for the fact that this took so long, but I think you'll be pleased with the result...

* * *

Hero of Elysium

Fifty against one. Impossible odds, whatever approach you took, if you didn't have armour or even shields and lacked copious amounts of high explosive. Solution: avoid. Unfortunately, this wasn't an option. The batarians were strung out in a long, loosely packed line, moving methodically and checking for snares and ambushes, but still close enough that Shepard wouldn't be able to slip around their formation before they reached him and continue on his merry way, as it were.

Solution: improve the odds through assistance from allied forces. However, there wouldn't be enough time to gather even a few marines or armed civilians from the landing zone to set up a firing line to hold them back whilst he had his way with them from afar; the batarians would reach the open ground and mow all of them down. No, his best hope for support was Miranda, probably the best person for the job on the entire planet, yet that still left the odds at fifty to two. Hardly encouraging.

This left one option, a dubious one to put it mildly, but better than simply charging in and hoping for the best. Kill off any batarian that occupied a role of command, and lead the enemy on a merry chase through the ruins until the shuttles landed and could provide some serious support, or until he could manage to get past them and depart with Miranda, in the unlikely event that she was willing to abandon her precious humans.

The batarians were getting a little too close for that idea, so Shepard hastily but carefully backed away, sticking to shadow and cover and avoiding displaying himself to the enemy, before clambering up onto a wall, lying prone, and meticulously choosing his target. There was a batarian, close to the centre, not giving any signals or gestures; a cautious individual aware of the danger a sniper represented, clearly. Unfortunately for him, his subordinates didn't share his intelligence or care, and were sending glances in his direction every few seconds or so, tilting their heads as if listening to orders given via comms channels.

Shepard put the leader in ELE's sights, waited until his 'men' were watching him as he gave another instruction, and pulled the trigger. The alien commander's head was pulped by the sniper round, the batarian dropping limply, now nothing more than a bundle of flesh, metal, and oozing, viscous fluids.

Without their leader's guidance, the batarians froze for a second, stunned by the sudden and clinical nature of the strike, before instinct took over, and they scrambled to get into the nearest areas of cover and watch for the culprit. Another batarian took over the role, somewhat further left in the line, probably a squad leader or something of the sort, but one with reasonable tactical sense; he had ten men on each end of the line break off and fan out, scouting and probing ahead of the main force to flush out and wreak vengeance upon the assassin.

Sadly for him, this had been what Shepard required of him, and now the human had no further use for the alien. As he had been easily identified due to his role in rallying the panicked troops and gesturing along with his orders, picking him off next was an easy feat that sent the enemy reeling again, briefly, before they succumbed to the natural impulses of any group that has had its natural leaders systematically eliminated.

First comes panic. Second comes anarchy.

There were two reactions; some retreated before the unseen menace fearfully, most succumbed to rage and set to hunting for him.

Shepard concluded that it was time to move on, slid down from his vantage point and strafed silently to the right of the swarming, leaderless batarians before opening fire again, picking off an alien that was attempting to get some of his comrades to follow him. He fired twice more from his new position, at insignificant targets, the third shot finally alerting the batarians to his location. It had been sloppy, he knew, but also deliberate, as he understood that he needed to tantalise them with a few glances every now and then to keep them enraged and distracted.

However, one does not simply enrage forty six batarians, reveal oneself, and then merely slip back into the shadows. Shepard ran, repeatedly managing to break their line of sight, but never for long enough to slip away as he raced chaotically through the ruins, swerving repeatedly at the sight of more of the wretched aliens before him, unable to spare a moment to return fire or deal with his foes in close quarters for fear of being shredded by the flow of pursuing bullets that never entirely ceased.

Shepard vaulted a low wall and came face to face with a pair of batarians, wielding shotguns that were already aimed at his chest-

The leftmost alien shuddered under repeat shots from a sniper rifle, destroying his shields and piercing his armour, dropping him within the space of a second. Startled, his companion looked at him, then glanced around wildly for the culprit, before Shepard shot him in the chest with his rifle, half-aiming from the hip before once again sprinting to break away from his pursuing foes, mildly comforted by the knowledge that Miranda was at least watching.

She opened fire again, bringing down some of the front runners, Shepard's careful eye picking out her location after the second shot; he steered clear of her so as to avoid giving her away and putting her in the same position as him. However, the confusion at last allowed him to escape the gaze of his foes for a moment and conceal himself on the remaining fragment of the first floor of one of the more intact structures, suppressing his breathing despite the fact that his muscles _ached_ from the desperate, adrenaline fuelled flight, and the acid build-up due to anaerobic respiration. Batarians prowled below, searching the area. How long would it be before they thought to check the high ground? Moments at best.

He heard batarians enter, then halt, focussed still further on bringing as much oxygen into his lungs as he could without making as sound.

A scrape of stone against stone, or, more accurately, concrete on concrete. Shepard stayed perfectly still, his blue eyes watching the route up next to the source of the noise without blinking. A hand appeared over the edge, then a batarian quickly hauled himself up to limit the amount of time he was helpless.

Shepard remained still.

The batarian squinted, unsure whether his eyes were playing tricks or whether there really _was_ something lurking in the darkness-

The something moved. Shepard lunged forwards silently, delivered a crushing blow to the batarian's throat that stifled his startled cry to a soft, choking gurgle, before ramming the blade in his left hand into the alien's bruised flesh. The batarian died silently. Shepard waited in the darkness.

"Karnak?" A hushed batarian voice spoke from below. "Anything up there?"

A batarian's voice was all but impossible to imitate realistically without the aid of tech; and Shepard still didn't have an Omni tool. He removed his knife from Karnak's flesh and pocketed it with a wry grimace, realising what the gore-smeared blade would do to the inside of that pocket, before picking up ELE in his right hand by her grip and resting the barrel back on his shoulder, bracing himself for a brief moment, before-

He kicked Karnak's corpse over the edge to land on his startled and increasingly nervous comrade, who froze in shock as he found himself borne down to the ground by the fresh corpse of his companion.

The spell broke, and he screamed.

Shepard leapt from the roof after the body, landed easily its chest, and simply allowed his rifle to swing down from his shoulders to plant a round in the other batarian's skull. The call and the shot had, of course, attracted every foe within earshot towards his location, but Shepard knew that another simple flight couldn't be sustained or depended on as a solution.

He remained where he was, ELE still pointed at the destroyed remains of the lower corpse's head, his eyes unfocussed as he concentrated on hearing the first hint of warning-

A sound to his right; he spun and shot a privateer as he appeared around the corner, strafed left to increase his angle of vision around the corner, saw another pair of batarians and killed them quickly with clean headshots. More noises, from all around, now. He couldn't stay put; the position was all but indefensible from a force this size. He moved out in the direction he faced, quickly stepped over the three newly stiffening bundles of meat and quickly strafed right so as to be out of the line of sight of anyone that rounded the corner before him, forewarned by the noise of multiple heavy footsteps.

Five batarian mercenaries rounded the corner, guns poised, and didn't see Shepard until the last moment, by which time he was already in among them, having fired a snapshot that sent the creature behind the leader down as he turned the corner, then dealing his predecessor a blow to the side of the head with ELE's stock before smashing the weapon into his throat and blocking the airway, sending the batarian sinking to the ground clutching at his throat.

Shepard twisted to his right to face the remaining three, snatched at the leftmost alien's gun with his left hand, guiding the barrel aside a second before it spewed forth a shotgun blast that impacted heavily against the kinetic barriers of his middle companion, before yanking on it to send his victim stumbling forwards into the path of the rounds that had been intended for the human, both from the two nearest batarians and those that were now closing from behind.

Without pausing, Shepard yanked the knife from his pocket with the same free hand and embedded it in the nearest weak point in the shieldless batarian's skull; his lower right eye, before releasing his grip on the blade, leaving it in and allowing the alien's body to fall forwards as another obstacle for the others closing in behind him as the human dealt with the final creature that blocked his continued retreat by simply _ramming_ him into the wall causing the batarian to drop his weapon, then sweeping his legs out from under him, leaving him disorientated on the ground.

Shepard ducked round the corner as a swarm of projectiles impacted against the wall he had been framed against, heralding the arrival of more batarians, who sprinted forwards after him, rounded the corner-

To find themselves face to face with their quarry, who sent the leader back into his comrades with a lethal flurry of blows, using him and the group's momentum to create a pileup of downed batarians before picking off the first to attempt to negotiate the obstacle, and subsequently retreating again.

However, that group represented barely half of the overall force that Shepard was in the midst of, and the others were swarming at him from almost all directions within moments, causing him to resort to less permanent measures to deal with them that saved time and allowed him to stay ahead of those that followed; if only barely, often escaping their line of sight for mere seconds, enough to throw off their aim but little more.

He was being forced around in a loop, he realised, driven towards the group he had managed escape before, yet he had little choice in the matter; to stop for more than a second was to die, and this was the path of least resistance, for now at least. Up ahead, muzzle flashes and a constant strobe effect of biotic blue glowed against the night; the batarians wished to trap their two foes together and prevent each from aiding the other, allowing them to be swarmed under.

_How long are those fabled shuttles going to be?_

Shepard vaulted a wall and moved through the shell of a building, and had his forward motion arrested on the other side as he found himself face to face with a wild-eyed Miranda, consumed with the glow of her biotics, who just managed to divert the wall of force she had been about to fling at him so that it slammed into a batarian to his right, whom she then finished with a quick shot from her pistol.

Spotting a batarian aiming his weapon over her shoulder, Shepard dropped his rifle and shoved her aside before ducking away from the shotgun blast himself, before swiftly recovering his stance, stepping forward and kicking aside the weapon before the alien could fire again, before continuing the spinning motion and delivering a back kick to the midriff that doubled his foe up, his head within easy reach as a result, which the human then exploited in order to snap the creature's neck.

Shepard drew his second knife in a SEAL grip in his left hand, holding his pistol in his right, and brought down a newly arrived batarian with five quick shots to his head and torso, before spinning to check on Miranda, finding her neatly disarming a batarian and then killing him and three of his comrades with his own assault rifle, before casting the overheating weapon aside in favour of her sidearm.

Shepard span and returned his attention to his own situation with less than a second before he would have been entirely shredded by a blast from the shotgun of a batarian who had been attempting to creep up behind him whilst his gaze was elsewhere. As it was, he'd made the mistake of coming a little _too_ close, and so Shepard was able to barge the gun aside before reversing the motion to slash his opponent's throat.

The corpse fell, revealing six batarians arrayed against him, armed with assault rifles, keeping their distance whilst remaining in cover. Shepard dived away from the ensuing hail of rounds, and managed to scramble into the doorway from whence he came, having lost his weapons in his haste. A batarian lay by him, a victim of Miranda's biotics, from the look the body, an assault rifle partially buried by his corpse. Shepard scavenged it without hesitation, looked up and immediately opened fire on the pair of batarians that were framed against the blown out windows opposite against the darkened sky. They fired back almost blindly into the shadows, aiming for the muzzle flashes but having no way to judge the vector of their bullets; as a result, their shots were inaccurate, and Shepard brought them down with ease, if not speed.

He whirled at a concussive detonation behind him; found that Miranda had performed a biotic charge to leave her in the midst of the group of six batarians, and watched as she smashed them all away from her with a powerful expanding bubble of force. Shepard's eyes widened with something close to envy at the display of force, then saw her shoulders slump as she her vice-like grip on her exhaustion slipped.

Saw as a couple of the luckier batarians stumbled to her feet and she didn't notice.

Saw them bend in order to pick up their weapons.

He was already moving.

The nearer of the two straightened up to find Shepard looming over him, raised his weapon, but not quickly enough. Shepard seized the rifle by the barrel with his left hand, before _smashing_ down on the alien's forearm with the palm of his right, his entire arm glowing with a biotic fury that shattered the bones in the limb, causing the batarian to release his grip on the weapon, which Shepard then used in a crude but efficient strike that shattered the creature's skull.

He turned in time to see Miranda deal with the other herself, having sabotaged the mercenary's shotgun with a pulse from her Omni tool before putting him down with a beautifully lethal kick that left her opponent's neck at a grotesque and unnatural angle.

And then it was quiet, for a brief moment.

Shepard knew what _that_ meant. The batarians had decided to turn aside from the difficult prey to predate on those that would make them bleed less. The civilians.

"Shepard-" Miranda began, her voice hollow with weariness. She knew it, too.

Shepard grunted sourly, too tired for articulate and whimsical protests at this point.

"Ready the shuttle." He said, and retrieved his guns, before striding moodily off in the direction of the evac zone to deal with the remaining dozen-odd slavers that had elected to be inconvenient. Miranda didn't bother to watch him go, but instead moved off towards the beacon that indicated the location of the escape vehicle that Cerberus had left for her use prior to the operation, that was fortunately not too far from her current location.

* * *

Shepard caught the batarians before long; he'd followed a more efficient route, and devoted his remaining conscious processing power to efficiency and speed of movement; besides, he didn't have to be able to do anything other than stand, see and shoot in order to kill the bastards with a sniper rifle, and ELE, with her night vision scope, made that absurdly easy.

The twelve became ten within the space of a moment; the aliens scrambled into cover and searched for their hunter in the darkness whilst Shepard stalked ever closer, catching a glimpse of another movement that indicated a being below him on the chain and relieving them of their existence, before at the very edge of the landing zone, he moved out to cut them off, framed against the meagre lighting put in place for the shuttles, were they ever to arrive.

The remaining five batarians, seeing the silhouette sway and feeling their confidence bolstered, wordlessly elected to eliminate this weakened obstacle in silence, in order to avoid alerting their cowering prey in the open ground to their advance. They fanned out, closed in on Shepard from all directions, some of them chortling quietly at how the human just stood there, head bowed, swaying on his very feet.

Three of them rushed him simultaneously once they closed within five metres of him. One of them tripped on the treacherous ground in the low light. The other two carried on regardless, got within striking distance-

Shepard moved. His body lit up with a blue aura that was clear in the darkness as he leaned to the side of the first powerful blow that came his way, before leaving his silhouette a blur in a rapid move that left the aggressor in an arm bar and on the receiving end of the slower batarian's knockout blow, before pushing the limp body onto the lone merc, letting him stumble under its weight briefly before the alien managed to move aside and into the stunning blow to each side of the head with both arms, before steadying his fleeting opponent's torso with his left hand, placing the palm of his right under the creature's chin, and simply _pushing_, in a quick glowing movement that let him hear as the vertebrae in the batarian's spine groaned under the strain before slipping irretrievably from their ordained positions.

Shepard let the limp body fall, then dropped with it, disappearing completely as his body let go of its grip on the element zero that was present in his very DNA.

The two more cautious batarians renewed their grip on their guns as their confidence turned to fear with the transformation of their supposedly simple disposal of one last obstacle into yet another debacle.

They saw a dark figure rise up less than ten metres away from them and begin to approach. They didn't hesitate, just pelted it with round after round, ignoring it's calls, even when it fell still shooting hysterically at its prone form, until their guns overheated through overuse, and, cautiously, slowly, weapons still trained on their target, they approached to verify the demise of the scourge of their species.

Instead, they found the corpse of their third impetuous comrade.

A grim, chilling chuckle ghosted out of the void behind them, petrifying them with a fear that was becoming superstitious in nature, as they didn't dare to turn or even move at all.

One felt the warm muzzle of a heavily used batarian made sniper rifle against the back of his neck, resting on the rim of his armour.

The other just heard the sound of a pistol being cocked.

Two detonations, and then neither of them sensed anything at all.

Shepard groaned aloud as he allowed his perpetually tense muscles to finally _relax_, whilst the last ebbs of adrenaline faded from his body and exhaustion and pain threatened to overwhelm him. He discarded the pistol as nothing special, took ELE in both hands, and moved off to locate Miranda and his ride off of this wretched world-

"Corporal Thaddaeus Shepard? Lieutenant Commander David Anderson, N7 Marine programme. Admiral Hackett sends his regards."


	16. Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa

Shepard's shoulders sagged even more at the voice behind him, if that were physically possible. _Would it be too much to ask that __**just once**__, I might actually see a plan that truly benefits me come to fruition?_

"If that bastard doesn't stop doing this to me, I may actually have to start to respect him." The psychopath snorted, then turned to face the newcomer.

Newcomers, actually. This 'Anderson' fellow, a man of African descent approaching middle age, had two marines flanking him, both with weapons trained on the Corporal, although they lowered them a bit when they saw the state he was in. Shepard brushed his hand across his face wearily, and realised that once again he was weeping blood. He grimaced as he felt the fledgling headache that he had previously been oblivious to increase in intensity.

All three of the Alliance personnel were clad in black and red armour, with the N7 insignia on the chest plate. N7s. The best soldiers that humanity had to offer, or at least those that weren't savvy enough to go freelance and actually make some money. However, they would definitely be a problem in his current state.

"Listen, I don't suppose I could persuade you chaps to say that you never saw me? After all, I did just save _rather _a lot of civilians here. Isn't that worth some credit?"

The beginning of Anderson's reply was cut off by the sound of a dozen shuttles flying in over the evacuation zone, to be greeted by loud and enthusiastic cheers and cries of relief from those huddled together on the open ground. Shepard pulled a disgusted face at the mindless joy they were exhibiting, then realised that this timing was a little _too _perfect.

"Apparently." Anderson said, somewhat sourly, once the noise had died down.

"So Hackett delayed the shuttles from being deployed to this area until you got here to pick me up?"Shepard guessed shrewdly.

"He seemed to think that if you survived, you'd be worth giving a second chance." Anderson said in a voice that plainly said that he was doubtful. _Probably one of those tortured souls that tells himself he hates to kill but justifies it with the greater good of the species, and so disapproves of anyone who's honest with themselves... _

"Illegitimate son of a female canine." Shepard said, anger in his voice but a level of grudging admiration for the Admiral. "This was a test. But however many batarians I killed here, the galaxy-the Council- they're not going to let my, ah... _misdemeanours_... slide, are they? He knows that. So, what? I die a hero's death defending the civilians, redeeming myself for Torfan, and in return for doing the Alliance's wet works, I'm offered a tabula rasa?"

"That's about the sum of it." Anderson conceded. "You'll be declared killed in action, new, clean, records will be created for you under the same name, and you'll be put in the N7 covert ops division."

_So I end up doing what I would have done for Cerberus, but legitimately, and with a clean criminal record..._

"And what happens if people discover that I'm alive?"

"What makes you think that they'll let anyone within a mile of what you'll be doing?" Anderson retorted.

Shepard stretched out a kink in the vertebrae in his neck, then bared his bloody teeth in an unpleasant, predatory grin, that had Anderson's companions raising their weapons again. Anderson didn't blink.

Suppressing his disappointment, Shepard spoke. "Congratulations; you've swayed me. I swear, henceforth, never to be immoral again... unless of course the Alliance asks nicely..."

"Shut it or I'll tell the Admiral that we didn't get here in time." Anderson threatened, drawing a sardonically triumphant grin from Shepard, although he _did_ refrain from pushing the man further. After all, he had won here...

A suspicion formed in his mind. "Anderson." He began as they trudged off through the desolate ruins of Elysium towards their shuttle.

"What?"

"Was this little scheme entirely Hackett's idea, or was he acting on an outside suggestion?"

"Hackett's taking the credit." Anderson replied, somewhat evasively. Shepard, however, saw through the facade.

_Lawson..._

* * *

Miranda faced hologram of the Illusive Man in silence, forcing herself to remain stoic before his tangible air of disapproval and disappointment, although inwardly, she cringed in shame and hurled recriminations at herself.

"Official reports have Corporal Shepard listed as KIA." The Illusive Man said finally, exhaling a lungful of cigarette smoke, a cold gleam in his dead eyes.

"I... have reason to disbelieve those reports, sir." The perfect woman responded carefully. "Having located the shuttle, I searched the area extensively in order to locate and extract Shepard, and found no sign of him. Having done so, I also executed several flyovers with the shuttle, and scanned the area for him, yet found no readings that matched his signature, neither living nor dead."

"Your conclusion?"

"Shepard left the planet intact with another party, perhaps the Alliance, perhaps... someone else."

"You believe that your father may be involved in his disappearance?"

"I believe that the Alliance is more likely, but I can... _feel_ his involvement. It's not something I can justify, but this has many of the characteristics of one of his machinations, to my mind."

"I trust your judgement, Miranda. I will look to my Alliance contacts for confirmation of your theory, and if it transpires that Shepard _is_ alive-"

"He is, sir."

"Then we will allow him to work with them, for the time being. Despite the Alliance's general inefficiency, they'll doubtless have him doing the same work that we would have given him, which means that he will still be working for the advancement of humanity."

He took a sip from the glass in his right hand, and turned his chair away from the communicator to gaze out at the turbulent, dying star that his station orbited. Miranda took this as her cue to take her leave, before he spoke after her;

"You handled a difficult situation in an effective way, Miranda. However, if you had put your objective over the survival of a handful of civilians and marines, the outcome would have been more favourable. I suggest you concentrate on the bigger picture in future."

The words chilled Miranda, though she was careful not to show it. That careful, grudging admission of praise, before telling her what she did wrong and how she had to change, that was eerily similar to how her father had carefully manipulated her until she had grown enough to realise what he was doing.

_This is different._ She objected to her own train of thought vehemently. _My father just wanted a 'perfect' puppet for his dynasty to massage his ego. The Illusive Man works in the interest of an entire species. Besides, he was right to criticise. I let guilt coerce me into taking action that jeopardised the objective._

As she returned to her desk, however, a small voice whispered one insidious thing in the back of her mind.

_Your father thought the same..._

* * *

Author note: There you are; my take on the events of Elysium. Yes, these stories have been mostly action; however, this was, in my defence, what the scenarios required. I'll be honest, though, one of the reasons the updates began to take longer was because I was finding it more and more difficult to write them and prevent the action sequences from getting too repetitive. I myself have been getting a little bored of it, but fear not; now that I have covered the two missions where Shepard's little more than a grunt, there will be more emphasis on character interaction, although, of course, there will still be violence, and an opportunity for some drastically different scenarios. The next instalment will cover the entirety of Shepard's years as an N7 up until the events of Mass Effect, and will be titled 'Mass Effect: Absolution'.


End file.
